CLARK FREEPORT, Pampanga – Overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) based in Hong Kong and hundreds of tourists from China intending to spend their vacation in the Philippines have vowed to travel through the Diosdado Macapagal International Airport (DMIA) here.

Some 400 OFWs and officials of at least 50 travel agencies based in Hong Kong pledged their definite plans and support to travel through DMIA during the recent two-day marketing and promotional conferences at the Bayanihan Kennedy Town Center in Hong Kong conducted by Clark International Airport Corporation (CIAC).

“We were surprised by the support of the OFWs,” CIAC President and CEO Victor Jose I. Luciano, who led the CIAC delegation in two-day roadshow in the former crown colony, said.

The DMIA hosts foreign and local carriers that include Air Asia of Malaysia, Tiger Airways of Singapore, South Korea’s Asiana Airlines and local carriers Cebu Pacific Air, the country’s leading domestic carrier, and South East Asian Airlines (Seair).

Aside from Hong Kong, Cebu Pacific also flies four times weekly to Macau and Singapore, twice weekly to Bangkok and thrice weekly to Cebu.

Cebu Pacific Air donated free air tickets and accommodations at Clark for some Hong Kong based OFWs as an indication of its unfailing support to the promotion efforts for the DMIA, its fourth hub in the country. The country’s leading domestic airline has been present in all the CIAC’s roadshow activities in Luzon and has raffled off free roundtrip tickets to ASEAN destinations to promote their flights at the DMIA and the airport.

Zest Air, a new local carrier, also announced that it would start its Clark-HK-Clark route on September 21 while Spirit of Manila Airlines (SOMA) is also expected to start operations from the DMIA soon.

“The expected increase in flights is adding to the popularity of the airport and is boosting its viability as the country’s premier airport which is in line with President Arroyo’s declaration of the DMIA as the country’s next premier international airport and best logistics and services hub in the Asia Pacific Region,” Luciano said.

Luciano also said CIAC will provide shuttle service between DMIA and the transport terminals outside the Clark airport, Angeles City and Mabalacat to provide seamless transport services to passengers arriving through the Clark airport.

Luciano’s meeting with 50 Chinese travel agents, travel media and Hong Kong-based Filipino journalists at the Star Room of the Langham Place Hotel in Mongkok, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR also resulted in their pledges to support to the recent promotional blitz dubbed “Via DMIA: Rediscover Clark and Subic, Philippines” conducted by CIA officials.

Presentations conducted during the road show were given by tourism stakeholders in the Clark Freeport that include Clark Development Corporation (CDC) Tourism Manager Noemi Garcia, Raul Marcelo of the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA) and former tourism secretary Mina Gabor.

The Commission on Filipinos Overseas, in a Stock Estimate of Overseas Filipinos it prepared and issued, noted that there are 130,537 overseas Filipinos in Hong Kong as of December 2007. A National Statistics Office (NSO) survey on overseas Filipinos in 2008 showed a significant portion of the OFWs in Hong Kong are within surrounding area of the DMIA, 14.5 percent of which are from Central Luzon where the DMIA is located and 14 percent are from the National Capital Region (NCR) that can be reached in just about an hour from DMIA.