During the Philippine Tourism Industry Convergence Reception at the SMX Convention Center in Pasay City, Marcos said the tourism sector is one of the high potential drivers for economic transformation considering the “majestic and natural wonders and exciting man-made sites” the country has.
“This is a driver of our economy and we must immediately do all that we can to make sure that this asset that the Philippines must be used to bring jobs to people, good jobs to people, to bring visitors to our country to once again… to reintroduce the Philippines to the world,” he said.
“Following the pandemic, we need fresh and new ideas to bring back the imagination and confidence of our people — from here and abroad — so they will be encouraged to explore the best destinations that the country can offer,” he added.
Marcos said his government will remain committed to ensuring that the inputs acquired from listening tours will be optimized for the benefit of the sector, which was badly affected by the Covid-19 pandemic over the past two years.
He said known and unknown resort areas will be developed, while airports will also be improved to make tourist destinations more accessible.
“The government has to do its part and the government’s part is to develop and make sure that these beautiful places, number one, have people to run them, the staff to run them,” Marcos said.
“Another thing that we consider was immediately necessary is we must improve the accessibility of all these places, to have direct access to smaller airports, not necessarily the big airports of Manila, of Cebu, of CDO, of Gen San, but also to the small areas,” he added.
Marcos said he is confident that the country will achieve its tourism goals with the help of Tourism Secretary Christina Fransco.
Earlier, Frasco said a total of 1,767,791 international arrivals were recorded as of October 16, surpassing the projection of 1.7 million tourists projected by the agency prior to June 2022. (SunStar Philippines)