3 Manila hotels, PAL report cancellations after carnage

Three hotels in the Manila Bay area have reported cancellations while two groups of Hong Kong tourists booked on a Philippine Airlines (PAL) flight have supposedly called off their trips, according to reports received by GMANews.TV. However, management of the three hotels have yet to find out whether the cancellations were due to Monday’s hostage crisis that left eight Hong Kong tourists dead, the Philippine Travel Agencies Association (PTAA) told GMANews.TV on Wednesday. The bloody conclusion of the hostage crisis, which has reportedly angered many Chinese nationals, has been blamed on the poor handling by the SWAT team that conducted the assault. “Some tourists may have decided to move their accommodations to other hotels in Makati," PTAA president Paz Alberto told GMANews.TV in a phone interview. She neither identified the hotels nor disclosed the number of guests who made the cancellations, saying a more accurate report will be made available soon. Similarly, two groups of Manila-bound Hong Kong tourists — with each group numbering about 20 travelers — have canceled their flights on PAL, a source familiar with the matter told GMANews.TV. No insurance Booked for September to October this year, the groups canceled their reservations upon learning that they weren’t covered by travel insurance on their trip to the Philippines. Hong Kong — a special administrative region of China — issued a travel ban to the Philippines two hours after the crisis ended in a bloody carnage. Besides discouraging residents from visiting the Philippines, the travel advisory also withheld travel insurance coverage for those going to Manila, the source said. “When your government tells you not to go, then you should follow," the source said. PAL has yet to confirm the information, Cielo Villaluna, the company’s spokesperson, told GMANews.TV in a text message. In a separate statement, the Philippine flag carrier said it “will continue to serve the Manila-Hong Kong-Manila route, via ten flights daily." “Although the company expects a decrease in Hong Kong tourist arrivals resulting from the tragedy… it still hoped that cancellations and dampened demand will be temporary," Villaluna told GMANews.TV in an email message. Controlled by Lucio Tan, the second richest Filipino according to Forbes Magazine’s July 2010 ranking, the flag carrier mounts five round-trip flights to Hong Kong from Manila. Rebooking requests In the meantime, Cebu Pacific — the Philippine carrier with the most flights to Hong Kong daily — said it received “rebooking requests for less than five percent of our total daily passengers carried for its Hong Kong flights." The airline carries 1,900 passengers daily on its Hong Kong to Philippines service and mounts the most number of flights on the same route. The Gokongwei-led carrier mounts five daily flights to Hong Kong from Manila, a separate five trips weekly from the Clark Airport in Pampanga, and once daily from Cebu. "Passengers scheduled to travel from August 24-31, 2010 from Hong Kong to the Philippines (and vice-versa) may rebook their flights or store their travel credits without penalties," the same statement said. Airlines serving the Hong Kong to Manila route — PAL, Cebu Pacific, Cathay Pacific, and Hong Kong Express — will not cancel any flights, PTAA’s Alberto said. Special offers needed The hostage crisis in Rizal Park — where President Benigno Aquino III took his oath as chief executive two months ago — may slow down tourist arrivals for the next three months, Rolando Canizal, a tourism development planning director at the Department of Tourism (DOT), told GMANews.TV in a phone interview. Hong Kong visitors were 22nd in tourist arrivals from January to Aug. 23 this year, Alberto said, citing Bureau of Immigration data. Meanwhile, from January to May this year, a total of 33,395 Hong Kong tourists visited the Philippines, 14.43 percent higher than the 29, 185 reported during the same period in 2009, the DOT said in its website. Of the total tourists from Hong Kong, nearly half or 13,775 visited the Philippine capital Manila. An estimated 11,222 went to Cebu and 3,853 went to Boracay, making the two destinations the second and third most popular among Hong Kong tourists, the same data showed. With the expected slowdown, the private sector “should look at other markets that can cover the space left by Hong Kong tourists," Alberto said. These markets include mainland China, India, and Southeast Asia in general, she added. The national government and the private sector should work together on “something special to entice people to come back," Alberto added. A meeting between all tourism stakeholders — including the DOT, 500 PTAA member-companies, among others — is expected to take place next week. —KBK/VS, GMANews.TV