Baguio to launch tourist registration platform

The local government will be re-launching the Visitors Information and Travel Assistance (VISITA) registration platform as a tourist assistance application to help boost the tourist arrivals in the Summer Capital.

Supervising Tourism Operations Officer Engr. Aloysius Mapalo stated that the platform is currently being populated with accredited tourism-related establishments, accommodation facilities, tour operators, restaurants, tourist destinations, among others, that will make it easier for the visitors to navigate and schedule their visits to the city.

He claimed that the application will allow tourists to generate a travel itinerary tailored to fit their interests as a guide in their stay in the city and to ensure they are provided with the appropriate accommodation by the establishments they select from the list.

Earlier, the VISITA registration platform had been used by the city government to regulate the entry of tourists in the city at the height of the implementation of the series of lockdowns due to the surges in COVID-19 cases over the past 2 years.

The city tourism officer urged visitors planning to spend their break in the city to still register in the VISITA application because accommodation establishments still require their guests to show their respective QR codes upon check-in as part of the existing protocols while the state of public health emergency in the country still exists.

He pointed out that the city government wants to ascertain the number of tourists visiting the city on a periodic basis but this is not possible because of the presence of the daytime visitors who actually do not avail of the use of the accommodation establishments that is why they are not part of the figures being declared by the city, especially on the number of tourist arrivals.

Mapalo called the owners of tourism-related establishments operating in the different parts of the city to register their businesses in the data for the VISITA registration platform to allow visitors a wider choice from where to select their desired tourist destinations and the businesses they will patronize when visiting the city.

He emphasized that the VISITA platform will be useful to visitors as an application because the data on the city’s tourism-related establishments will be readily available from where they can choose when staying in the Summer Capital.

He expressed hope that more visitors will avail of the VISITA registration platform in an application form so that the city government can generate the desired data on tourist arrivals during a certain period of time and other important data needed by decision- and policy-makers in the formulation of new policies to further enhance the local tourism industry.

The city was the first local government to use the VISITA registration platform to regulate tourist arrivals in the city during the height of the implementation of the community quarantine restrictions that limited the number of tourist arrivals to prevent further surges in COVID-19 cases. – Dexter A. See