Foreign visitors reach 3.597 M in 1st 9 mos

MANILA, Philippines - The Philippines hosted a total of 3.597 million visitors for the first nine months of the year, up 2.49 percent from 3.509 million in the same period last year.

A total of P157.73 billion was generated from inbound tourists in the first nine months with Korean visitors as top spenders.

“The huge familiarization trips, marketing efforts and participation to international travel fairs, as well as, tourism infrastructure development help boosted arrivals to the country,” the Department of Tourism said.

January remained the top month in terms of arrivals with 461,383, while the highest growth of 6.27 percent was recorded in August.

Travelers from the East Asian region continued to be the biggest source of arrivals, accounting for 48.64 percent of the total with 1.750 million visitors.

Korea was the biggest contributor of arrivals with 865,950 while Japan posted the highest growth rate of 6.11 percent.

The North American region was the second largest group in terms of arrivals contributing a total of 639,440, sharing 17.78 percent, and recording an 8.24-percent increase from last year’s arrivals of 590,771.

Countries in the 10-nation ASEAN region recorded the third biggest arrivals of 337,392, cornering 9.38 percent of the total visitor volume.

Visitors from Australasia/Pacific constituted 5.63 percent of the total inbound traffic with 202,328 arrivals.  This figure was 4.45-percent higher than the 193,704 arrivals the previous year.

Travelers from Northern Europe increased by 9.04 percent compared from 138,405 in 2013 to 150,910 arrivals in 2014.  This region contributed 4.2 percent to total inbound traffic.