DOT aims to strengthen PH-Austria tourism ties

INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines — The Philippines is aiming to further strengthen its partnership with Austria to boost sustainable tourism, the Department of Tourism (DOT) said Tuesday.

Tourism Secretary Christina Frasco made the pronouncement during a working visit to Vienna, Austria, where she met with Austrian State Secretary for Tourism Susanne Kraus-Winkler.

During the meeting, Frasco expressed the Philippines’ intent to pursue a tourism cooperation agreement with Austria in an effort to grow tourism numbers in the two countries.

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“Following our discussions in Manila during your visit last year, we wish to reiterate the interest of the Philippines to sign a Memorandum of Tourism Cooperation to formalize our efforts to benchmark best tourism practices on sustainable tourism, enhance our people-to-people exchanges, and further enhance our frameworks on human capital development, among others,” said Frasco.

“We acknowledge the opportunity to strengthen the market; we also wish to maximize the opportunity to educate and inform Austrians about our tourism products in the Philippines which are of great interest to Europeans including our beaches, dive sites, adventure offerings, and experiential travel across our islands and among our diverse communities,” she added.

Frasco said that the Philippines has already recorded an 89 percent recovery rate of visitor arrivals from Austria to the Philippines at 13,180 in 2023 compared to the pre-COVID-19 pandemic numbers in 2019 at 14,840.

She also noted that the Filipino community makes up the largest Asian community in Austria, with approximately 30,000 Filipinos, and as many as 60,000 Filipino-Austrian nationals.

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Kraus-Winkler said that she was looking forward to implementing “working holiday program” provided for in the Memorandum of Understanding that was signed in Manila between the governments of Austria and the Philippines in October 2023.

“…We want to further expand the good cooperation between Austria and the Philippines in the field of tourism and promote the mobility of young people. We are looking forward to the talks on the rapid implementation of a working holiday program, as we were recently able to conclude with the USA,” said Kraus-Winkler in her meeting with Frasco.

Through this program, young individuals from both nations can study and enter into temporary employment arrangements in the destination country.

Apart from initiating another agreement, Frasco and Kraus-Winkler also discussed sustainability and the pivotal role of digitalization of tourism on the economies of the Philippines and Austria.