Local travel is a hassle these days due to a list of requirements that must be met by tourists in order for them to enter cities and towns.
As part of the measures to contain the spread of COVID-19, the majority of local government units still require the submission of a negative RT-PCR test result before entry to their provinces as part of safety measures.
However, Palawan, Aklan and Cebu LGUs, in a dialogue with presidential advisor for entrepreneurship Joey Concepcion, are pushing for lesser restrictions and simplified entry requirements for fully vaccinated travelers. This includes scrapping the use of negative RT-PCR tests as travel requirements for incoming visitors who have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19.
Meanwhile, Bohol is suggesting vaccination cards must be fully authenticated to allow mobility of vaccinated tourists.
The City Government of Tacloban, through an executive order, was among the first to successfully implement the use of vaccination cards in lieu of testing requirements for returning residents and tourists. Other LGUs such as Dumaguete, Cotabato, Guimaras and Butuan followed suit in accepting tourists.
To date, Tacloban has vaccinated around 100,000 individuals, 54,437 of which received their full dose of the vaccine.
AirAsia Philippines is supporting calls of local government units to remove the use of negative RT-PCR tests as travel requirements for incoming visitors who have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19.
AirAsia Philippines CEO Ricky Isla said their support for the said LGUs is to lessen the cost of travel particularly for fully vaccinated individuals.
“AirAsia is 100% behind our LGUs in calling for a more relaxed travel restriction and requirement for fully vaccinated individuals to lessen the cost of air travel. It is also one way to incentivize those who took the shot and encourage more to do the same,” he said.
“It’s Christmas season in the Philippines, and after almost 2 years of not being able to travel due to the pandemic, Filipinos would surely want to spend time with family in the provinces or just simply enjoy the beach and the sun in the many leisure destinations in the country,” Isla added.
To help LGUs in making the process of accepting visitors seamless, AirAsia for its part is integrating the health travel icon on its Super App with the Department of Health’s (DOT) VaxCertPH.
“We are in the final stages of integration and once completed we shall roll out the health travel icon on the airasia Super App for easy vaccination verification among LGU’s who would accept fully vaccinated individuals. This definitely will hasten the recovery of not only the airline industry but the tourism sector as a whole,” Isla added.
AirAsia Philippines is also pushing for a shortened 5-day to zero quarantine period for fully vaccinated international travelers. Isla said this move will also entice more travelers from the U.S. and other European countries to reconsider their plans of visiting the Philippines.
