Hotel, Tourism stakeholders ready for influx of tourists

CEBU CITY – Hotels, resorts, and restaurants are expecting Japanese and Korean tourists to be back in Cebu this year as industry players have a bullish outlook on the province’s tourism industry pre-pandemic level recovery. 

“We expect a boom of the tourism sometime in September or October of this year. In terms of employment, most of us in the hotel and resorts business are hiring to support the boom,” said Carlo Anton Suarez, executive vice president of Hotel, Resort and Restaurant Association of Cebu Inc. (HRRACI) 

Suarez said as flights from Korea and Japan are coming in starting next month, hotel and resort owners are rushing to hire more personnel to get ready. He said Cebu’s tourism industry can bounce back to the pre-pandemic level by next year, noting a gradual influx of visitors, particularly backpackers from the Middle East. 

“My personal estimate would be sometime in March next year, that we’ll be having a 2019 pre-pandemic stage. But in the next few months, we will be experiencing an influx of tourists, which is a positive development,” he said. 

Suarez also cited the change in the administration at the Department of Tourism, saying more tourism-related projects are expected to be rolled out in Cebu when Liloan Mayor Christina Frasco assumes as Tourism secretary. 

HRRACI president Alfred Reyes also said hotels, resorts, and restaurants in the province are now back in their usual business after more than two years since the Covid-19 pandemic, citing the government’s response and vaccination efforts. “As long as you wear a face mask, life must go on,” he said. 

Reyes said their operations are now dependent upon the domestic tourists, citing the local visitors as key drivers of the tourism economy as it started to open up a few months ago.  

Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama said they are well prepared for the influx of visitors, adding the recovery of the tourism sector is timely with the resumption of the Sinulog Festival. The mayor said he has invited President-elect Ferdinand Marcos, Vice President-elect Sara Duterte, and other officials under the new administration to experience the post-pandemic Sinulog festival. (John Rey Saavedra)