By Froilan Gallardo
Special Correspondent
AFTER almost four months of restrictive quarantine protocols here, Cagayan de Oro’s hotel industry has been brought to its knees.
In a letter to the regional Inter-Agency Task Force dated September 24, the Cagayan de Oro Hotel and Restaurant Association (Cohara) said many of the hotels here would have to stop operations or close shop if quarantine conditions would continue to be implemented in the city.
“May we request some reconsiderations [sic] be amended in order to aid the survival and recovery of our industry,” Cohara president Eduardo Pelaez’s letter reads in part.
Pelaez said local hotels have suffered economic losses not only for the two months that the ECQ had been implemented but ever since the pandemic started in March 2020.
“For two years hotel owners bear the brunt of paying our employees even though we were closed most of the time,” Ami Saniel, a manager of one of the hotels here, said.
In her case, Saniel said her staff of 100 is now down to only five because her hotel and its restaurant are closed.
She said the hotel and her remaining employees adopted a flexible arrangement taking turns of who will work.
“No owner can survive two years without business income. That is what is happening to all hotels in Cagayan de Oro,” Saniel said.
Cohara proposed that their hotels accept guests regardless of age who already have their first dose of vaccine.
Pelaez said this way, local hotels can survive the economic crunch.
To ensure health protocols, Pelaez said hotels and restaurants would have to be allowed to operate only 50 percent of their customer capacities.
The Department of Interior and Local Government have favorably endorsed Cohara’s proposal to the regional IATF.
Department of Tourism-10 Dir. May Salvaña-Unchuan said they are meeting with the hoteliers this week so they can find ways to ease their economic burden.
“We understand their position. They have suffered long enough,” Unchuan said.
Unchuan said one of the problems they have identified is the different implementations of the IATF quarantine procedures by local governments.
“Some (local governments) go easy with their hotels while others are very strict,” she said.
Unchuan said Cagayan de Oro is one of the strictest implementers of quarantine measures after the city was wracked with triple-digit infections in the past two months.
She said they have given relief to the hotel employees but they understand that this is not enough.
As of July 15, the National Economic Development Authority-10 said some 6,534 workers in the hotel industry in Northern Mindanao have been affected by lay-offs and flexible work arrangements.
