The government is looking at easing the export requirements for tourism economic zone projects to make tourism investments in the country, especially in the Visayas and Mindanao, more attractive.

Reappointed Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA) director-general Lilia B. De Lima told reporters at the inauguration of the new headquarters of content security provider Trend Micro the move is in line with the directive of Trade and Industry Secretary Gregory L. Domingo to find ways on how to make tourism investments in the country more attractive.

“We are looking at ways to make investments in PEZA more attractive specifically for the tourism projects,” De Lima said.

Under the current rules, a PEZA-registered enterprise must be 70 percent export and only 30 percent domestic. This applies to the manufacturing sector.

By analogy in the tourism sector, this should translate to a tourism ecozone project having to cater to 70 percent foreign tourists and only 30 percent domestic tourists.

“It takes time to build your foreign clientele base for a hotel operation and putting up a five star hotel entails huge capitalization. We believe the 70-30 foreign-domestic revenue requirement should not be applied to eco-tourism projects. We might take this out,” De Lima said.

De Lima said that PEZA is crafting a formula specifically for tourism ecozones to be presented to the board for approval.

The idea is to give a tourism ecozone developer time to build up its clientele. PEZA is initially looking at 40 percent foreign component on the first year of operation.

PEZA has already registered a few tourism ecozone developments, but expects to attract more investments especially in the Visayas and Mindanao if the 70-30 export-domestic rule is relaxed.