No more fly-by-night tours 

In Bohol’s new normal 

TAGBILARAN CITY, Bohol, Oct 31 (PIA) – As Bohol reopens a travel bubble starting in Panglao this November 15, it would be the new normal that prevails and unlike then, there would be no “do-it-yourself tours. 

Off to possible a good restart as Bohol now only allows tourists on establishments authorized to operate in the new normal, as well as on the Department of Tourism accredited establishments, this time, colorum operators and fly by night operators would have no share of the pie. 

Governor Arthur Yap, during his update at the daily Press Briefing hosted by Presidential Spokesperson Secretary Harry Roque, said the government is studying the possibility of opening to domestic tourism on November 15, but safely. 

Earier, the governor bared that opening Bohol’s tourism would be started by accepting groups on meetings, events, conventions and incentives, where it is easier to control and manage being one group that travels together. 

The decision was also based on the Department of Tourism’s travel bubble concept. By travel bubbles, DOT Secretary Bernadette Romulo-Puyat explained that “tourists from countries with low to zero Covid-19 cases as well as those who have successfully demonstrated capability in controlling the spread of Covid-19 within their respective borders” can strike bilateral arrangements between each other to allow travelers “to enter each other’s borders” with minimal quarantine period. 

Citing Bohol, with Panglao Airport, she said tourists from these areas will be allowed to visit the Philippines and “fly directly to tourist hotspots with international airports.” 

Needing only a negative for COVID test results through Reverse Transcription Polymer Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) in the last 72 hours prior to flight to Bohol, tourists with less than five days of stay here can register at the tourism portal of the Bohol tourism office, to be processed and given entry. 

Earlier, the BIATF issued guidelines for persons with less than five days of stay in Bohol, which requires no 14 days quarantine as long as they can show negative COVID results in an RT PCR test. 

Simply log in to tourism.bohol.gov.ph and fill out the name, email, age, gender, contact numbers, nationality, residence and employment, a tourist would also need to state his booking references, purpose of travel, accommodation establishments and booking reference, number of nights of stay in Bohol and then attach the negative for COVID RT PCR test. 

An sending of the registration prompts an email response that would give out the unique Guick Response Code to the registrant. 

The site is dedicated to register tourists coming in and the registration acts as a way to populate the computer-based databank which also gives access to Bohol authorities to track the tourist based on the time the card is used of scanned in tourism points. 

As the registration populates the data bank, it also assigns a QR Code to the Bohol Card he gets when he steps into Bohol. 

The unique QR Code assigned to a tourist would be tracked as soon as the tourist uses the card in entrances to establishments, transportation, and in tourism stops when it is scanned by an android smart-phone based QR scanner. 

With the Bohol Card, a tourism simply have to book to a tourism stop ahead and make online payments, in a system of contactless payments system in the new normal. 

The card, which Bohol governor Arthur Yap said numbers 300,000 would also be given for free to household heads here. 

Critical to the system is the strict adherence to the health and safety protocols, and a reliable contact tracing system in place, to allow authorities to decisively contain an area when COVID red flags pop. (rahchiu/PIA-7/Bohol) 

NON CONTACT PAYMENT SYSTEM CONTACT TRACING CARD. Critical in Bohol’s opening up of its travel bubble to tourists coming from areas with similar Covid category of affectation as Bohol, is the Bohol Card which allows tourists to make contactless cash payments as well as an efficient android phone based QR scanner system that gives real time location of the card holder. (PIABohol/inq7.net)