By Ma. Stella F. Arnaldo / Special to the BusinessMirror
‘KAWAWANG-KAWAWA na kami [We are beyond pitiful]!”
Thus was the lament of Jonah Vargas (not her real name), a travel agent based in the Visayas, to the BusinessMirror. She works for one of the most prolific travel agencies that have been recently hit by millions of pesos worth of cancellations by Chinese tour groups no longer coming to the Philippines.
She said she recently received a cancellation of Chinese tour groups from Wenzhou (Zhejiang province) and Chengdu (Sichuan province), for a total of 438 guests. These guests, mostly groups of families, were supposed to go to Cebu and Bohol for six days. She estimates total losses for her travel agency at P13 million.
The cancellations were attributed to nonrenewal of charter permits of Philippine carriers, ostensibly as a reaction to the July 12 ruling of the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) at The Hague repudiating the historical claims of China over islands and atolls in the South China Sea. (See “Sea-ruling driving Chinese tourists away,” in the BusinessMirror, July 22, 2016.)
The Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) on Wednesday reported 17 more canceled charter flights, based on notices filed by “two major carriers.”
Lawyer Wyrlou E. Samodio, head of CAB’s Legal Affairs told the BusinessMirror that the canceled charter flights cover July and August 2016, with the routes between several points in China and Cebu, and between several points in China and Kalibo. On top of the earlier cancellations already reported, the total number of charter flights cancellations by Chinese tour groups are now 19. (See “Chinese charter-flight cancellations continue,” in the BusinessMirror July 23, 2016.)
Samodio, however, said the carriers are still not treating the cancellations as a major problem and have not asked the CAB to intervene on the matter. Computed at about 194-passenger capacity for an Airbus A321 plane, the number of Chinese tourists who have foregone their trips to Cebu and Kalibo have now reached 3,500.
The CAB declined to identify the major carriers due to privacy issues.
If the cancellations from China keep up, Tourism Promotions Board (TPB) Chief Operating Officer Domingo Ramon Enerio III admitted it may be difficult for the agency to hit its target Chinese visitor arrivals of 632,947 this year. “It will be tough,” he said, as more cancellations are being reported by hotels, travel agencies and local carriers. The TPB is the marketing arm of the Department of Tourism (DOT).
TPB’s target for Chinese visitor arrivals in 2017 is 729,715. In 2015, arrivals from China grew by 24.3 percent to 490,841. It has been the fastest-growing market for the Philippines and now ranks fourth among the top sources of tourists for the country.
Officially, however, DOT executives continue to say they have not yet received any reports of cancellations by Chinese tourists.
In a text message, DOT Assistant Secretary for Tourism Planning Rolando Canizal said, “We are in the process of verifying reports, but, so far, our people on the ground are saying it is business as usual. Nevertheless, we are closely monitoring the situation to be pro-active in case anything arises.”
While the DOT and the CAB are still seeking to downplay the magnitude of the problem, local travel agencies and those in the accommodations sector are clearly in pain.
In a post on the Facebook page Boracay Beach Community, Max Kuijkhoven of the Ambassador in Paradise Resort, said, “We have seen a significant amount of cancellations after the July [ruling] regarding the South China Sea. [It] cost us millions [of pesos in losses].” The 60-room Ambassador in Paradise is a five-star hotel on Boracay Island’s upscale Station 1. Boracay is famous around the world for the powdery white sand of its long beach.
For her part, Vargas, who requested for anonymity as she was not authorized to speak for her travel agency, said, “We’ve asked the DOT to make representations on our behalf with the hotels, to just offset these cancellations [with future bookings], and not to charge us cancellation fees. Kawawang-kawawa na kami [because of these Chinese cancellations].” She also asked that her travel agency not to be identified.
The travel agent also stressed that Chinese tourists “love coming to the Philippines. They are always surprised that Filipinos are so friendly, they get good hotels and good service from the staff. But they get disappointed because the government-to-government relations [between China and the Philippines] always gets in the way.”
In an earlier report, tourism industry sources said a preliminary list of hotels affected by the Chinese cancellations included Crown Regency, Montebello Villa Hotel, BE Mactan and Shangri-La Mactan—all in Cebu—as well as BE Grand Panglao, Panglao Nature Island Resort, Henann Resort Alona Beach, Bluewater Panglao Beach Resort, Flushing Meadows Resort in Panglao and Bellevue Hotel all in Bohol. Also the Henann Group said the recent rash of Chinese cancellations affected all their Boracay properties.
Meanwhile, a tourism industry source based in China, said many Chinese tourists have complained of Cebu Pacific’s charter services. “Cebu Pacific’s chartered flights from small-tier cities like Hangzhou, have been canceled several times. A lot of Chinese tourists have complained about this, because they are always waiting, and they have limited time.”
The source added: “Some flights do not arrive on time, sometimes it does not even arrive. I think Cebu Pacific should cancel a few of their trips because we all know that they do not have enough aircraft. The chartered plane should arrive, no matter what, but the reason they sometimes give is that the plane has not yet taken off from another destination. Can you say that is a chartered flight? But these are the excuses the airport personnel from Cebu Pacific are always saying. There have been many complaints against them, but no one from the airline talks to the clients—they are usually trainees and/or a manager who does not even know how to handle such complaints.”
The tourism industry veteran, who declined to be named, noted that “too bad…these charter flights were always full,” coming from cities in China with small airports, “going directly to Palawan, Boracay, Cebu and Bohol.”
Despite repeated requests, Cebu Pacific has refused to issue any statements regarding its charter operations in China.