In yet another move to repair strained relations with Beijing, the Philippine government is looking at the possibility of relaxing visa requirements for Chinese tourists to encourage them to visit the Philippines.
Philippine Ambassador to China Jose Santiago “Chito” Sta. Romana disclosed that the two countries have an ongoing bilateral consultation on visa facilitation schemes.
“The basic approach is to relax the visa restrictions so that to encourage tourism on both ways on mutually beneficial terms,” Sta. Romana said.
The ambassador explained that visa requirements for Chinese tourists when relaxed would necessitate Beijing to extend the same privilege to Filipino travelers to China: “We have like to have the same access to travel as the Chinese.”
Data from the China National Tourism Administration website showed that the Philippines is China’s 11th top source travel market, with more than a million arrivals.
Last year, 490,841 Chinese tourists arrived in the Philippines, 24.28 percent higher than the 394,951 recorded arrivals in 2014.
In the past seven months, 422,801 accumulated arrivals were recorded from China.
The post PH, China in Talks to Relax Each Other’s Visas appeared first on Manila Bulletin
Share It To Your Friends!
Loading...