PHILIPPINE-BASED tour operators stay resilient and continue on innovating to generate travel activities across the country amid the ongoing oil crisis, the Philippine Tour Operators Association (PHILTOA) said on September 4.
Speaking at the opening of the 2026 Philippine Travel Mart (PTM) in Pasay City, PHILTOA president Maria Lourdes Japson said tour operators are “keeping up” in bookings despite disruptions caused by the Middle East conflict.
“The tourism industry, especially the tour operators and travel agencies, are already resilient. We learned our lesson from the pandemic. And this global oil crisis that we are facing is actually part of showing our resilience,” she said.
“We know that the airfare is quite expensive, so we innovated on something different that we could maximize tourism arrival without using the flights only,” she added.
Tour operators, she said, are intensifying efforts to attract tourists from the Association of the Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) market while continuing to target long-haul arrivals.
Japson said PHILTOA is also collaborating with counterparts from fellow ASEAN states to help keep the broader region’s tourism sector buoyed.
This includes exploring possible thematic circuits like the “weaves of ASEAN” to highlight the different textiles of Southeast Asia or the “faith of ASEAN” to invite travelers looking to learn about the different religions in the region.
“We need to be creative, like targeting ASEAN market or specific market, or even long-haul, but they have stopover to other ASEAN para pumunta ng Pilipinas,” she said.
She added: “We just have to really be creative with the packaging, because travel and tours, we are the one on the ground. We’re the frontliner, we are at the middle of the transaction.” (PNA)
