Baguio tourism peaks for Yuletide

TOURISTS will be welcomed in Baguio City for the Yuletide.

Engineer Alec Mapalo, Baguio City supervising tourism operations officer, confirmed a peak in arrival to the city for the holiday season.

“Highest arrival can happen on December 23 with 843. Total for the next two weeks alone is 5,748. Accumulated tourists inside the city can peak on December 26 at 3,236,” Mapalo said.

Mapalo said approved travels and potential arrivals in the coming days for December have a cumulative count of at least 1,000 a day.

Statistics from the Baguio Visitor Information and Travel Assistance (Visita) platform shows that arrivals for December 31 is at 1,853 , December 30 - 2,148, December 29 - 2,144, December 28 - 2,295, December 27 - 2,887, December 26 - 3,236, December 25 - 2,888, December 24 - 2,699, December 23 - 2,304, December 22 - 1,798, December 21 - 1,835, December 20 - 2,021, Deccember 19 - 1,806, and December 18 - 1,504.

Mapalo said these days are the traditional peak season, with up to 6,000 to 8,000 daily arrivals before the pandemic.

Many are still doing their registration in the Visita. All approved travels are those who registered through Baguio Visita, entering necessary travel details and uploading required documents, including Covid test options to undertake. After review and confirmation of their travel by the Visita team, they will be sent their Quick Response-Coded Tourist Pass (QTPs), which is required to be presented at the border and at the City Triage.

Arrivals in the Visita platform showed that for December 31, there are 135, followed by December 30 – 437, December 29 – 298, December 28 – 222, December 27 – 394, December 26 – 609, December 25 – 359, December 24 – 836, December 23 – 843, December 22 -361, December 21 – 306, December 20 – 469, December 19 – 635, December 18 – 534.

“This number of tourists may seem many as compared to other destinations in the country, but it's not even 10 percent of what we used to have, especially at this time of the year, which is our traditional peak season. So it's still a struggle for our businesses. We’re starting to cope and, hopefully, starting as well to help those who had not have any sources of income or livelihood for the past months,” Mapalo said.

In a related development, Engineer Januario Borillo, chief of the traffic and transport management division of the City Engineering Office, said areas that are now ready to accept buses and vans coming from the city include Clark, San Fernando City and Mabalacat City in Pampanga; Mariveles, Bataan; San Carlos, Villasis and Lingayen in Pangasinan; Olongapo City, Zambales; Cabanatuan City, Nueva Ecija; Bontoc, Mountain Province and the National Capital Region (NCR).

In a recent Octa research, Baguio returned to the high-risk circle, with Mankayan in Benguet as the only area in Luzon, Makati City for NCR and Davao City (Davao del Sur) for the Mindanao island cluster.

Octa reported Baguio logged 16 cases a day from the period of November 24 to 30 and 32 cases a day from December 1 to 7, with an attack rate of 6.3 percent and a hospital occupancy of 68 percent.

For areas like Baguio in the “high-risk” list, the group of experts urged the local government units (LGUs) concerned to further intensify their efforts at testing, tracing and isolating cases to reverse the increase in transmissions in their communities.

Implementing more aggressive and effective localized lockdowns with stricter border controls is urgently needed to suppress further viral transmissions, the group said. Other controls in ports and airports will also be crucial to support the government’s plans to expand domestic and international travel in the country.

“During this new normal Christmas, we must all be mindful that the virus is still here and is very much a clear and present danger to us all. We must also remind ourselves that the current positive trends in the NCR and in the Philippines are very tenuous and can easily be reversed if the government, the private sector, and the public become less vigilant and complacent in the fight against Covid-19,” the Octa research said.

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