Five foreigners went missing
On December 24, the Chinese government halted visa applications for tour groups from the Philippines due to “unprofessional” conduct by an unlicensed travel agent in China. Individual visas will not be affected by the shutdown; however, most Filipinos travel to China in organized tours.
According to the Philippine Business Mirror, on December 22 the unidentified Chinese travel agent admitted a group of Filipino tourists, and five of them “disappeared right after arriving at Shanghai PVG Airport.” It may not have been the first time the travel agent admitted Filipino tourists “without checking passengers’ background and charging guarantee deposits.”
Jose Clemente III, president of the Tourism Congress of the Philippines, has demanded “reciprocity on the part of the Philippine government”—in other words, a retaliatory ban on group visa applications from Chinese tour groups.
That kind of response seems unlikely under Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, who doesn’t have to look farther than South Korea to see the impact of a standoff with China. In 2017, Beijing banned travel to South Korea after to the deployment of the U.S. anti-missile system THAAD; the yearlong injunction cost the South Korean economy some 7.5 trillion won (US$6.8 billion), according to the National Assembly’s Budget Office.
Retaliating against China would most certainly harm Philippine casino operators, who rely on Chinese customers for much of their gaming revenues. Experts say the Solaire Resort & Casino in Manila’s Entertainment City may derive a third of its mass-market gaming revenue and half of its VIP turnover from Chinese patrons. The Philippine government has gone out of its way to ease travel for those patrons with relaxed visa regulations.
