New Boracay Travel Guide targets China, South Korea

The Boracay Foundation Inc. (BFI) is currently finalizing the third version of the Boracay Travel Guide for 2017.

Raffy Cooper, marketing officer of the BFI, said the travel guide is the contribution of the Boracay business community to the flourishing tourism industry of this resort island.

The first version in 2015 was widely circulated in an international travel mart in Europe. The second version in 2016, on the other hand, was circulated in Australia.

“For the third version, we are planning to circulate this, especially in China and in South Korea,” he said.

Both the China and South Korea markets are the top 2 sources of foreign tourists who visited Boracay since the 1990s.

“In our previous promotional ventures in Australia and Europe, we learned that many potential tourists in there are not yet aware of Boracay Island. There are still huge potentials for Boracay in terms of foreign tourist arrivals. We wanted to lure more tourists through our travel guide book,” Cooper said.

In 2016 around 1.7 million tourists visited Boracay. Almost half of them are foreign visitors.

“We also wanted to target in our future promotional ventures the United States. It is still being untapped in terms of promotional efforts for Boracay. Our problem for now is that America seems not keen on holding international conferences on tourism,” he added.

Meanwhile, the Department of Tourism-Boracay is eyeing strict accreditation of tourism-related establishments both in Kalibo town and in this resort island.

Kristoffer Leo Vellete, acting officer of the DOT-Boracay, said he is currently in talks with the councilors of both Malay and Kalibo towns to enact their respective ordinance.

“We are telling local legislators of Kalibo and Malay that our model for this ordinance was that of Bohol. We all know that Bohol has been targeted by terrorism. However, their tourism industry immediately bounced back because tourists know that Bohol follows national standards in tourism,” he said.

However, he clarified that the implementation of the tourism accreditation law once enacted would still give leeway to tourism-related establishments.

“Upon enactment of the municipal ordinance, the business establishments would be given one year to avail themselves of accreditation. If they still fail to do so, the local government has the power not to renew their licenses unless they comply,” he said.

He added that the tourism lure of Boracay could be enhanced once the stakeholders are all accredited by the DOT.