The Department of Tourism has been busy implementing its vaccination program of tourism workers in the country as part of efforts to help the tourism sector recover from the pandemic.
On Thursday, the department rolled out 2,000 anti-Covid doses covering both the first and second dose of 1,000 tourism frontliners in San Fernando, Pampanga.
DOT region 3 and the provincial government of Pampanga partnered with SM Pampanga to conduct the vaccine rollout, bringing the number of fully vaccinated individuals in the province to over 240,000.
The vaccines were provided by the Department of Health.
In Metro Manila, more than 70 percent of tourism frontliners working in DOT-accredited quarantine facilities, isolation facilities, multiple-use hotels, and staycation hotels have been vaccinated against Covid-19 as of August 9, according to the DOT.
A total of 19,315 out of 26,745 or 72% of tourism frontliners from the 16 cities and one municipality in Metro Manila have been vaccinated.
The DOT said they plan to vaccinate 100 percent of tourism workers from DOT-accredited accommodation establishments from Metro Manila before the end of August.
The DOT also announced that 3,760 more active tourism workers in Bohol will be inoculated following the second vaccination rollout in the province. This brings the total number of tourism workers for inoculation in the province to 9,920 or 76% of the 13,000 target.
Tourism Secretary Berna Romulo-Puyat stressed on the importance of a faster inoculation across the industry and its stakeholders as doing so will aid not only local tourism but economic recovery as well.
“The vaccination of our tourism workers is a necessary step to keep them protected while doing their duty in the frontlines. These figures are of high importance especially with the threat of the Delta variant,” said the tourism chief.
The DOT, through its NCR office, has also facilitated the vaccination of workers in DOT-accredited restaurants. As of August 9, 1,245 out of the 4,479 workers in the list submitted by 202 restaurants in Metro Manila have been vaccinated.
Meanwhile, DOT also reported that local tourism in region 3 continues to show recovery for the first half of the year, with 2.25 million arrivals versus 622,705 recorded in the same period year-ago, according to Puyat.
Likewise, tourist receipts grew to a hefty P11.27 billion from just P3.11 billion in the same comparable period.
While Pampanga has been open for leisure travelers since October 2020, the spike in cases along with the emergence of new variants prompted heightened restrictions in the province, requiring non-residents and unauthorized persons to present a negative RT-PCR test taken not more than 48 hours before entry.
