MANLA, PHILIPPINES – The Ecoutourism Philippines Webinar on May 28, 2020 was an initiative by Masungi Georeserve Foundation, Visita and Eco Explorations, in cooperation with the Asian Institute of Management – Andrew Tan Center for Tourism, to discuss the recovery of the tourism sector post-COVID.
It gathered international and national experts to explore how technology and low-volume ecotourism experiences can aid the process, and get the travel industry back on its feet.
“For ecotourism, the new normal is actually the old normal. In walking treks and canoeing, for example, you’re dealing with quite small numbers in remote areas where the risk [of COVID-19] is very low,” Tony Charters, vice-chairperson of the Global Ecotourism Network and an international consultant with 25 years of experience, shared.
This was echoed by John Roberts, group director of sustainability for Minor Hotels, which operates more than 500 hospitality properties across the globe. “We [in ecotourism] have a head start. We should be coming back quicker than mass tourism. Camping might be an ideal way to travel because you’re bringing your own room with you.”
Boboi Costas, founder of Grassroots Travel and a former tourism officer of Cebu Province, hopes that the government will be able to give training for tourism frontliners who stopped working due to the travel restrictions. He said the government and its private sector partners could explore how to “provide digital skills training to communities to empower them. With the new normal, they’ll be able to promote their sites online.”
He added that the local government of Alonguisian in Cebu has hired community leaders and tour guides as COVID response frontliners and marine sanctuary guards.
Pamela Valle, project manager of Visita, a non-profit “smart and sustainable digital visitor management system for nature-based destinations”, emphasized that the problem of enforcing carrying capacity and managing tourist flow has been there even before the pandemic and even more essential now due to the health crisis.
She announced that the Visita website and app, which aims to help destination managers address these concerns, is now open for potential partnerships for interested destinations.
The panelists also underscored that to continue promoting the Philippines as an ecotourism destination, we need to showcase our biodiversity and continue conserving it. “We are one of the megadiverse countries in the world with some of the highest rates of endemism [of species] yet we are losing much of biodiversity due to unsustainable development practices,” Costas remarked.
For Charters, “Boracay [rehabilitation] was a globally high profile story. Keeping these projects at the forefront will say that the Philippines is doing tourism in a sustainable way.” He added that maintenance and quality of visitor infrastructure is also key to attracting tourists to the country.
Tourism to bounce back soon
Meanwhile, the experts are optimistic about the tourism sector’s ability to recover strongly.
“Tourism has a proven capacity to bounce back and drive recovery of other sectors. Worldwide arrivals returned 5 months after the September 11 attacks in 2001, 5 months after the SARS outbreak in 2003, 10 months after the global economic crisis in 2009. I believe tourism is the most resilient sector in the economy,” Costas said.
Charters added that he wouldn’t be surprised to see the ASEAN group bounce back quickly as it seems to be performing better than Europe and the Americas in the pandemic response.
“You may find travel between ASEAN and ASEAN +2 group opening up faster. Among the Philippines’ top six markets, four or five of them are considered to be doing very well against pandemic. You might recover faster than the rest of the world. Out of your top 12 destinations, 8 destinations are doing very well that may represent around 70% of your normal market, provided the trends continue,” he noted.
Department of Tourism Secretary Berna Romulo Puyat said in a message to webinar participants that the DOT has always been supportive of ecotourism as it encourages the preservation of the environment and natural resources.
“Ecotourism further instills in visitors the respect and appreciation for the culture of indigenous or local communities, while giving its people a viable form of livelihood. The situation brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic has opened our eyes to the fragile nature of our industry. As we begin our recovery, this session provides stakeholders the perfect opportunity to discuss how we can strengthen and improve the ecotourism industry, making it more flexible, resilient, and better suited to withstand times of uncertainty and difficulty in the future.”
