The Philippines is pursuing tourism cooperation with Austria in a bid to capture more visitors from Europe.

“We wish to reiterate the interest of the Philippines to sign a Memorandum of Tourism Cooperation (with Austria) to formalize our efforts to benchmark best tourism practices on sustainable tourism, enhance our people-to-people exchanges, and further enhance our frameworks on human capital development, among others,” Secretary Christina Garcia Frasco told Austrian State Secretary for Tourism Susanne Kraus-Winkler during a working visit in Vienna last 7 March.

Frasco said she wanted to take an opportunity with the Austrian market, citing the impressive 89 percent recovery rate of visitor arrivals from Austria to the Philippines in 2023 at 13,180, vis-à-vis the 14,840 arrivals recorded in 2019 pre-Covid-19 pandemic.

The Filipino community also makes up the largest Asian community in Austria, with approximately 30,000 Filipinos, and as many as 60,000 Filipino-Austrian nationals.

Maximizing opportunities

“We acknowledge the opportunity to strengthen the market; we also wish to maximize the opportunity to educate and inform Austrians about our tourism products in the Philippines which are of great interest to Europeans including our beaches, dive sites, adventure offerings, and experiential travel across our islands and among our diverse communities,” the Tourism chief told  her Austrian counterpart.

Frasco also took the opportunity to share the Department of Tourism’s nationwide program to train Filipino tourism workers in the Filipino Brand of Service Excellence with over 126,000 trained in 2023 alone, as well as to discuss the country’s English as a Second Language Program with the Philippines ranking among the top five providers of this tourism product worldwide.

To reciprocate, Secretary Kraus-Winkler said the largest employment sectors for Filipinos in Austria “are in tourism and care,” with almost a quarter of the Filipino diaspora in Austria currently working in the tourism sector.

Secretary Kraus-Winkler likewise broached the conclusion of a “working holiday program” provided for in the Memorandum of Understanding that was signed in Manila between the Austrian and Philippine Governments in October 2023.

Working holiday programs

“Tourism generally benefits from working holiday programs, as young people want to gain experience in tourism worldwide. Experience has shown that young people often also want to explore the country where they are working and go on vacation during their stay of up to one year. We want to further expand the good cooperation between Austria and the Philippines in the field of tourism and promote the mobility of young people. We are looking forward to the talks on the rapid implementation of a working holiday program, as we were recently able to conclude with the USA,” said Secretary Kraus-Winkler.

The Austrian government’s working holiday programs combine vacations with practical work experience abroad to enable young people to finance part of their stay abroad. Through this program, they can enter temporary employment arrangements in the destination country and make use of educational institutions.