Bohol hotel says some visitors cancelled reservations
  • 5 years ago
MANILA, Philippines - One of the biggest hotels in Bohol took a hit from Tuesday's quake. Bellevue Hotel group corporate general manager John Patrick Chan said some visitors have cancelled reservations for the next few days. But Chan is still optimistic the impact of the quake on Bohol's tourism industry will be minimal. "We've been getting cancellations for next few days; some of the bookings are mostly corporate events... Damage to tourism industry will probably be a short-term one. We expect things to go back to normal soon. We're lucky the earthquake hasn't damaged much much more," Chan said. Meanwhile, Tourism Secretary Mon Jimenez has ordered the Department's officials to get in touch with local businessmen to preserve tourism sites. "Overall assessment as of now is the primary offerings of Bohol and Cebu remain very considerable. Because these places have a wealth of offerings, the adjustments that have to be made are very minimal," he said. "Large majority of offerings are intact. We're proceeding as normal as soon as we have attended to more urgent concerns like injured, etc," he added. Ten churches, some of which have crucial links to the earliest moments of the Spanish colonial and Catholic conquest in the 1500s, were damaged as the quake struck the central islands of Cebu and Bohol. In Cebu, parts of the Basilica Minore de Santo Nino (Basilica of the Child Jesus), the oldest church in the Philippines and home to one of the country's most important religious icons, had collapsed. - With ANC and Agence France-Presse