Updated DOT data shows

Bohol guest arrivals up

By 66.07% over 2015

TAGBILARAN CITY, October 12 (PIA)—Bohol tourist arrivals by room occupancy in 2016 increased by 66.07% compared to the previous year, although tourism performed lesser than expected.

And in the first five months of this year, over reports that Bohol tourism slumped because of the negative response from the travel advisories issued by foreign governments during the Abu Sayyaf incursion to the tourism island last April, Bohol Tourism Office (BTO) records showed that the figure was not as bad as earlier reported.

Early reports of tour cancellations reverberated over local radio stations as some resort owners took their frustration to the airlanes, especially when initial Department of Tourism-7 (DOT-7) reports showed discouraging tourism arrival figures for Bohol.

According to BTO in a graph shared by BTOfficer Josephine Cabarrus, 2016 still caused an increase of 51,044 foreign tourists as against the 215,269 who arrived and toured Bohol in 2015.

This, she showed, is still 23.71% increase in foreign travellers arriving and staying overnight in Bohol.

World Tourism Organization only counts tourism arrivals according to registered room occupancy, despite the fact that over half of Bohol tourist arrivals are in for a day-tour, and leaving the tourist island at the end of the day.

The more encouraging figure however is the noted increase in domestic travellers in 2016, which still posts 90.19% increase.

Domestic tourists in 2015 reached 384,838, this ballooned to 731,915 in 2016.

With the figure, Bohol tourism stakeholders pegged a milestone when, after the 2013 earthquake which crashed the local tourism, guest arrivals to Bohol breached the one million mark.

But, how did it happen that initial Department of Tourism (DOT) reflecting BOT records showed discouraging reports?

BTO said the time the DOT issued the tourism arrivals from the initial BTO records in Bohol, most municipal tourism officers have not submitted their room occupancy reports.

It was only by the end of 2016 when MTOs finally filled in the room occupancy reports that the BTO has also to update their data, reflected in the 2017 first quarter report to the DOT, she explained.

The BTO consolidates tourist arrival data from the room occupancy reports submitted by Municipal Tourism Officers (MTOs).

The BTO collects the records of room occupancy from hotels, resorts, homestay, pension and guest houses from the MTOs and submits these to the DOT.

The data collected which the DOT based their Bohol tourist arrival in 2016 was not complete, notes Cabarrus.

Submission by the Municipal Tourism Officers is not really up to date, and it was only in January that we got hold of the completed data in 2016, she further said.

In the end, Bohol still posted a 66.07% increase in tourist arrivals, in the first five months of 2016 compared to the previous year, data from the BTO showed. (rahc/PIA-7/Bohol)

Not entirely true, asserts Bohol Tourism Officer Josephine Cabarrus when asked to confirm the decreased number of tourist arrivals in 2016 over 2017. She said the early reports used incomplete data as Municipal Tourism officers reports on room occupancy in town establishments only came in the last quarter. With Cabarrus is PDO Gina Kapirig. (rahc/PIA/Bohol)