By Nestor Licanto
For Variety
HAGÅTÑA (The Guam Daily Post) — Richard Rennie, publisher of the Guam Tourism Review, said the lesson learned is that “airline routes do not succeed based solely on seat capacity or marketing campaigns. They succeed when the travel process for passengers is simple and accessible.”
According to Rennie, the fundamental challenge of the new service launched in December by Philippine Airlines is that travel for Filipinos from Cebu to Guam requires both significant cost and lengthy preparation before it can even begin, “in which case the potential demand pool becomes much smaller.”
All Philippine citizens require a visa for travel to the U.S. with a non-refundable application fee of $185, whether approved or not. Then there is the new $250 visa integrity fee imposed under the Trump administration’s “One Big Beautiful” budget bill passed by Congress last year.
Rennie said in addition to the $435 in visa-related costs, residents of Cebu must travel to the U.S. embassy in Manila for the visa interview. He said while Cebu has a U.S. Consular Agency, it does not process visas or conduct interviews.
The application process includes two in-person steps: biometric data collection at the Visa Application Center and an interview with a consular officer at the U.S. Embassy.
“In most cases this requires a two-day trip to Manila simply to complete the visa application process,” he said. “In total, the estimated cost for a Cebu resident to obtain a U.S. visa is approximately 33,500 pesos–35,000 pesos (about $575) before the Guam trip itself even begins.”
Also challenging is the typical wait time for a tourist visa interview in Manila, which is 30 to 45 days after fee payment. Then passport processing and delivery back to Cebu typically require an additional five to seven business days, Rennie said.
The additional costs and processing time matter, Rennie said, as leisure travel within Asia often occurs on relatively short planning cycles.
“Weekend holidays, golf trips, spa visits, and shopping trips are frequently arranged within days or weeks, not months,” Rennie said.
“Destinations that require lengthy visa procedures therefore face a structural disadvantage when competing with destinations that allow visa-free travel,” he concluded.
