THE Department of Tourism (DoT) said it hopes to increase visitor arrivals from India by executing the memorandum of cooperation on tourism signed by India and the Philippines in 2019.
In a statement on Wednesday, Tourism Secretary Ma. Esperanza Christina G. Frasco said that the Philippines welcomed around 79,000 Indian visitors last year, up 12.4%.
“While this number is smaller relative to our ASEAN neighbors, it represents significant growth,” Ms. Frasco said.
“We see tremendous potential in India’s outbound tourism market, and we are committed to making the Philippines a top destination for Indian tourists,” she added.
Ms. Frasco met with Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat of India’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism on the sidelines of the ASEAN Tourism Forum meetings.
She expressed the Philippines’ readiness to sign an implementation program to execute the 2019 Memorandum of Cooperation.
“We are very hopeful that through our meeting today, through the forthcoming implementation program, and the work that both our teams will do, we can increase from the 79,000 Indians that arrived in the Philippines last year to allow the Philippines to have a bigger share of the over 5 million that arrived to ASEAN in 2024,” Ms. Frasco said.
The implementation program would cover the expansion of air connectivity, the exchange of travel professionals, and joint marketing promotions to mutually increase tourism flows.
“India and the Philippines both share a long (history of) cultural ties,” said Mr. Singh.
He added that the Philippines “deserves much more” of a share of Indian tourists visiting ASEAN.
VISA LIBERALIZATIONAt the Kapihan sa Manila Prince on Wednesday, Ms. Frasco said: “What happened after the pandemic is that our ASEAN neighbors became very aggressive in their visa liberalization policies, either by adopting electronic visas or implementing visa-free policies for citizens of many countries,” she said.
“That is why the DoT, as early as the start of the administration, advocated (for more liberal visa policies with) the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) and the Bureau of Immigration,” she added.
An electronic visa system used to be in place for Chinese visiting the Philippines; however, this scheme was suspended.
“Visa liberalization is critical. And so with the challenges that we are facing pertaining to the Chinese market, we are now looking at India,” she said.
President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr. has given a directive to improve and implement a more efficient and competitive e-visa system for Indians.
“During the ASEAN Tourism Ministers meetings, Thailand announced that it is removing visa requirements, if I’m not mistaken, for at least 90 countries,” Ms. Frasco said.
She added that the Philippines should try to liberalize visa policies for as many countries as possible.
“But in terms of priority, it’s really India that we’re looking at right now for visa liberalization,” she added. — Justine Irish D. Tabile