If restaurants are pinning their hopes on revenge dining, hotels are expecting revenge vacation as early as the Christmas season.
Retailers will also see a resurgence in shopping near the holiday season.
But Benjie Martinez, president of the Hotel Sales & Marketing Association (HSMA), said this depends on the alert levels to be imposed in different parts of the country.
But if the ongoing SOS (September Online Sale) event is an indication — where HSMA and partners have sold some P6 million in 1,046 vouchers in travel packages — Filipinos are raring to take short vacations as soon as this activity is allowed.
“People have been locked up for the past year and a half and based on the outcome of SOS, people are interested to go once it is safe as long as it is safe,” Martinez said.
He, however, noted Filipinos would be more comfortable travelling anew by early next year.
Martinez said based on data, families and friends in the age range of 24 to 34 years are the top buyers of vouchers in resorts and even in city hotels for staycation.
Samie Lim, chairman emeritus of the Philippine Retailers Association, said revenge travel and tourism will happen in so-called safe balloons, specific areas with intensive vaccination drives and which are equipped with safety seals such as Boracay, Bohol, Baguio, El Nido, Laiya and Punta Fuego in Batangas, Tagaytay Highlands as well as Intramuros and Luneta and other outdoor spots.
According to Lim, despite the advent of online shopping, Filipinos will want to go to physical stores for their Christmas shopping.
He said big malls will do even much better while the smaller ones will have their fair share of foot traffic around the holidays.
Divisoria, he said, will still be the go-to place for bargain shopping.
Eric Teng, president of the Resto PH, told the Laging Handa public briefing yesterday said the expected revenge dining will be accompanied by revenge shopping and revenge vacation.
He said slow and safe increase in dine-in capacity will allow restaurant owners to rehire and retain workers, cut their losses and reduce the number of shuttered establishments, from carinderias in school areas to five-star restaurants in central business districts.
Teng said half of the restaurants in smaller malls have shut down and the ones which have survived are those in big malls with high foot traffic.
Martinez said food and beverage (F&B) services in hotels lose about 60 percent of their revenues whenever they are closed for dine-in.
According to Teng, restaurants hope to see over the next 30 days the benefits of the sacrifices when they were closed by the lockdown in August.
He said as the rate of vaccination increases, restaurants hope to go back to “almost normal” like in other countries.
Teng said 10 percent of dine-in capacity in the National Capital Region which is now on alert level 4 is better than zero. – Irma Isip
