Thread: Nearly one-third of tourism-related businesses 'may shut down permanently'

Originally Posted by katie23

Tourism industry doesn't have a huge contribution to GDP in PI (unlike in Thailand), but OFW (overseas Filipino worker) contributions do. Because of the virus, many OFWs were laid off and had to come home. Now a lot of them are unemployed. Some have been featured in local news clips - they used their savings to put up small businesses.

There are huge numbers of de facto OFWs out of Thailand although they don't run a formal program that I know of and I don't know if statistics are published. The returnees we are seeing from Korea and Taiwan and the Middle East were all remitting funds home and that money train, like that from the bar girls in Phuket and wherever, is slowing surely.

^the OFWs who have returned home are mostly from the service sector - hotels, restaurants, shops, cruise ships. Those who are in healthcare, education, domestic helpers & seafarers/ mariners - their jobs are safe for the meantime. But there were also reports of seafarers who were unable to board ships/ be on new contracts because of the virus. There was a report in local TV about a group of seafarers living in a boarding house in Manila while working on their papers for their next contract. Then PI went on lockdown last March 16, many offices were shut down, there was no public transport, etc. The seafarers asked for help from the govt bcos their savings were dwindling & most of them were from the provinces. Then I've also watched a DW news report that because of the virus, it's difficult for ships to make crew changes due to varying regulations in countries. Sigh...

This was the DW news clip. The seafarers that they interviewed were Filipinos (I can recognize the surnames & accent.)