Baguio eyes September opening of borders to tourists

June 28, 2020 Community Billboard

BAGUIO CITY – This summer resort city hopes to start accepting a limited number of tourists by September amid the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) pandemic, an official said on Wednesday.
Aloysius Mapalo, supervising tourism operations officer, said they are looking at a “gradual opening of our borders to tourists.”
He said they are devising a system where tourists will have to register before they can be allowed entry.
“We want to limit the tourists who will come in and we can only do that through advance registration,” he said.
He said when the registration has reached its limit, the city government will ask the registrants to choose another date for their visit to the city. Baguio in 2019 recorded an estimated tourist arrival of 1.7 million.
Mapalo said April and May or the summer season recorded the most number of tourist arrival with an average of 100,000 a month. The number excludes the daytime tourists and those who stay at unregistered and un-monitored accommodation establishments.
December recorded the second-highest tourist arrival which offers a different natural cold weather while February placed third when the Baguio Flower Festival is celebrated.
Liz Agoot