Although a resolution by the national task force capped visitors, there was no provision for enforcement. So no one is in charge of limiting arrivals – not the airlines, not the boats that bring tourists from the main island of Panay, not the hotels on the island. According to the Malay-Boracay Tourism Office’s monthly tally of visitors, the number exceeded the cap in busy spring months in 2019 and again last spring. That prompted a new carrying capacity study by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), which led the national task force, though its results have not yet been released.
In the coming months, the cap will surely be tested again. Flights are rapidly increasing at the nearby airports of Kalibo and Caticlan. And tourists from China and Korea – the biggest sources of visitors, accounting for 40 per cent of tourists before the pandemic – are poised to return in the coming months.
What’s more, the national task force was dissolved in June 2022, and oversight of the island was returned to local government officials, some of whom want to lift some of the restrictions.
Dante Pagsuguiron, the longest-serving member of the Malay municipal council that includes Boracay, said in an interview in February that he’s opposed to any capacity cap and that the island could support triple the current 14,000 government-accredited hotel rooms. He supports bringing back beach beds and limited dining on the beach.
“To me, if there’s tourists coming to Boracay, regardless of the numbers, then we need to accept them,” Pagsuguiron said.
It’s unclear what will happen next. Pagsuguiron and others speculated that the DENR study will raise the arrivals cap by 25 per cent to 40 per cent, allowing for up to 9,000 arrivals a day. The DENR did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
In March, the governor of Aklan province, which includes Boracay, created a new oversight body for the island, the Boracay-Caticlan Sustainable Development Council, to sustain the gains of the rehabilitation. According to the province administrator, Selwyn Ibarreta, the new council has agreed that an independent entity should conduct another carrying capacity study.
REHABILITATION, THEN COVID-19
Source: CNA
