500,000 visits in 2015
Philippines casino tycoon Enrique Razon is reportedly pushing for a “visa-on-arrival” program for Chinese visitors to the country.
According to the Asia Gaming Brief, Razon pitched the plan to Finance Secretary Sonny Dominguez and Foreign Secretary Jun Yasay. He reasons that the warming of relations between China and the Philippines could presage a burst of tourism from Mainland China, and increase visitation as much as a hundredfold.
Razon’s Bloomberry Resorts operates the Solaire Resort & Casino in Manila’s Entertainment City. Bloomberry has already noted an increase in Chinese visitors, possibly a result of President Rodrigo Duterte’s outreach to the Beijing government of Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Chinese arrivals at Solaire rose almost 140 percent in November and 80 percent in October on a year-on-year basis, Razon said. “You can more or less attribute that directly to the improved bilateral relation,” he told reporters earlier this month.
During Duterte’s four-day trip to China in October, Xi lifted a travel ban imposed on the Philippines. Last year, the Chinese posted more than 120 million outbound trips, including 500,000 visits to the Philippines, reported AGB.
