Philippines to reopen 'soon' to vaccinated foreign tourists from select areas

MANILA — The Philippines will "soon" reopen to some foreign tourists who are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, the tourism department said on Friday, following moves by other Southeast Asian countries to relax travel curbs.

Tourism Secretary Bernadette Romulo-Puyat said her agency asked the COVID-19 task force to approve the entry of fully vaccinated tourists from "green list" territories with low COVID-19 cases.

"In principle, nag-approve na sila,” said Puyat in an interview on TeleRadyo.

(They approved it in principle.)

Puyat said guidelines will be set in a meeting later Friday. A technical working group was tasked to promptly come up with guidelines for final approval of the inter-agency task force, she said.

"I hope sooner than later. Sana by next week payagan na," Puyat said.

(I hope they will allow this by next week.)

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IATF spokesman Cabinet Secretary Karlo Nograles said "there’s just a few things we need to tweak" in the guidelines before announcing the date for the tourism opening.

"We’re putting the entire world in advance notice that we will eventually open up our shores to tourists coming from green list countries," he said in a separate press briefing.

The Philippines aims to revive its tourism industry gravely affected by the nearly 2-year pandemic, opening destinations for domestic travel in recent months as infections eased.

The Philippines, known for its diving destinations and thousands of tropical islands, saw an 83 percent drop in foreign arrivals last year, receiving nearly 1.4 million visitors, compared to nearly 8.2 million in 2019. Japan, South Korea and China are its biggest tourism markets.

It imposed some of Asia's tightest entry requirements during the pandemic and has been one of the region's worst hit countries in terms of cases, deaths and economic losses. Just over a quarter of its population has been vaccinated.

Neighbors Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia have also announced various degrees of reopening in recent weeks, after progress in vaccinating their local populations.

Puyat said that the proposal to open leisure travel from green countries will be based on strict conditions.


Only fully vaccinated individuals with vaccines recognized by the country’s Food and Drug Administration through an emergency use authorization (EUA) or those authorized by the World Health Organization will be allowed entry to the country.

"Allowing tourists from green countries or territories that have the majority of its population vaccinated and with low infection rate, will greatly help in our recovery efforts," Puyat said in the statement.

The Philippines includes on its "green list" of approved countries Japan, China, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and India, among others.

— With a report from Reuters