Boracay rebounds

Malay Municipal Tourism Office said visitors to Boracay from 1 January to 15 April this year reached 619,934, or 67,000 more compared to the same period in 2018.

Absolute pleasure Blue seas and skies and white beach are all ingredients of a perfect vacation which the rejuvenated Boracay Island offers. JOHN HENRY DODSON

BORACAY, Aklan — Nearly a year since being reopened to the public following six months of environmental rehabilitation, this island paradise continues to lure foreign and local tourists.

The Malay Municipal Tourism Office said visitors to Boracay from 1 January to 15 April this year reached 619,934, or 67,000 more compared to the same period in 2018, before it was ordered closed on 26 April 2018 by President Rodrigo Duterte.

Mr. Duterte called Boracay’s waters a “cesspool” due to tainted water quality and in ordering its total closure forced most establishments to cease or to scale down their operations. Those found violating coastal easement regulations or dumping untreated sewage into the beach were permanently shuttered.

Likewise, roads were dug up at every turn to primarily construct drainage systems that to this day have remained unfinished to the consternation of the local population. A conservative estimate would put at 50 percent roadway projects yet to be completed.

Of the 357,041 foreign visitors in the first three months and a half of 2019, 80 percent were Chinese and South Koreans, with the rest coming from the United States, Taiwan, Japan and the United Kingdom.

The arrivals of more foreigners, who made up 57 percent of total tourists in the first quarter of 2019, should translate to big earnings, right?

Not necessarily so, and maybe because the uptick in tourist numbers early in 2019 may be more due to the excitement of the reopening. Whether the surge in visitor arrivals would continue also remains to be seen.

A week before the first anniversary of its reopening, a number of businessmen engaged primarily in the hotel and restaurant industry lamented what they described as a substantial downswing in their incomes. Even those engaged in the service and transport sector have rued the slash in their daily earnings.

A manager of a sizeable hotel right smack at the backside of the famous D-Mall festooned with souvenir shops and eateries said occupancy has been down to as much as 30 percent and not just because “we were coming off a lean season.”

Disappointing pace Composite images show several roads in Boracay still unfinished a year after the holiday island reopened after a massive rehabilitation program. JOHN HENRY DODSON

Requesting anonymity during dinner in the just concluded CXO Innovation Summit hosted by VST ECS Phils. Inc. at the posh Shangri-La Boracay, the manager said restrictions on the number of tourists that may enter the island at any given time have exacted a big toll on their business.

“The backpackers are gone and in their place are the loud tourists, many of whom are not just rude but are also tightwads. It’s not just volume but the quality of tourists we have attracted of late,” he said.

“From a daily take-home of P3,000 before the closure and restrictions on beach parties, we are now only earning half as much on a good day,” said E. Valencia, a driver of the tuktuk-inspired electric trikes now numbering at about 3,000 units since their introduction in the island in 2014.

Costing for e-trike drivers includes several battery changes during the day with each swap costing P250 good for three hours of travel on Boracay’s winding and up-and-down roads made miserable by still dug-up roads more suited for dirt bikes.

“This is especially hard on the bearings,” said Romeo, another driver but of the gasoline-fed tricycles, referring to the rough roads. The drainage ditches, especially those intended for culvert construction, can easily swallow a trike if the drivers are not careful.

Maurice Altar, an executive of information technology distributor VST ECS Phils. Inc. said the company’s top honcho, Jimmy Go, decided to host the 2019 CXO Innovation Summit at Shangri-La Boracay because it has “constantly been voted as one of the best.”

“I think the choice of hotel is a big factor in pooling confirmations and attendance. The commendations we have received from both our participants and sponsors is a combination of the positive experience from the hotel, organization of the event, line-up of content, profile of speakers and quality of attendees,” Altar said.

By quality, the VST ECS executive was referring to the regional heads of such information and communications technology heavyweights as Hewlett Packard, its subsidiary Aruba, IBM, Cisco, Samsung, Huawei, Lenovo, Dell, Oracle, HPE, Microsoft, Fortinet, Rubrik, Hitachi Vantara and Schneider Electric among others.

Altar said that the much-needed reformative changes being undertaken in Boracay have “trade-offs” insofar as the bottom line of businesses is concerned.

“For example, because of restrictions on noise past 10 p.m., people have no choice but to end whatever celebration they are doing. The repercussion? Lower revenues on beverage tabs,” he explained.

For the tricycle drivers who charge P200 to those from Shangri-La Boracay who are bold enough to venture into the “underbelly” of the island by visiting its main white beach, a year of enduring rough roads is not something unbearable.

“Maybe it will take three more years for the roads to finish but it’s okay. We’ve seen how good our streets can be in the stretch of D-Mall’s backside, and we’ll wait,” one such driver told the Daily Tribune.

Meanwhile, the manager of the middle-tier hotel who long for the “good old days” summed up what may be missing in Boracay these days.

“Parties are now banned, so what will the tourists do, soak all day long in the water under the sun?” he said. Just the same, the hotel he works for may be angling for “better days” as it is in the midst of constructing an annex.