The Philippines has lifted a nearly two-year ban on foreign travellers in a lifesaving boost for its tourism industry as an Omicron-fuelled coronavirus surge eases.
Foreign travellers from 157 countries with visa-free arrangements with the Philippines who have been fully vaccinated and tested negative for the virus will be welcomed back and will no longer be required to quarantine upon arrival.
The government also ended a risk classification system that banned travellers from the worst-hit countries.
“We will begin the next chapter in the road to recovery,” said tourism secretary Berna Romulo-Puyat.
She added that the border reopening would restore jobs and generate revenue across tourism-related enterprises and communities.
The Philippines imposed one of the world’s longest lockdowns and strictest police-enforced quarantine restrictions to quell a pandemic that caused its worst economic recession since the 1940s and pushed unemployment and hunger to record levels.
More than a million Filipinos lost their jobs in tourism businesses and destinations in the first year of the pandemic alone, according to government statistics.
Tourism destinations, including popular beach and tropical island resorts, resembled ghost towns at the height of pandemic lockdowns, and a volcanic eruption and typhoons exacerbated losses.
The reopening had been set for December 1 but was postponed as the highly contagious Omicron variant of coronavirus spread.
Less than a thousand new cases were added daily during the Christmas holidays, when large crowds of shoppers trooped back to shopping centres and restaurants despite constant government warnings.
The subsequent surge peaked above 39,000 infections in a day in mid-January, but has since eased.
Health officials reported about 3,600 infections on Wednesday, with 69 deaths, and have declared the entire archipelago, except for one southern region, at “low to moderate risk”.
More than 60 million of nearly 110 million people in the country have been fully vaccinated against coronavirus and 8.2 million have received their booster shots in a campaign that has been hampered by vaccine shortages and public hesitancy.
President Rodrigo Duterte warned Filipinos in televised remarks that “we are not over the hump” and urged the unvaccinated to get immunised soon.
