Tourist arrivals up 8.7% in 7 months

MANILA, Philippines - Tourist arrivals in the first seven months of the year went up 8.66 percent, with the month of July registering the highest growth and biggest number of arrivals, the Department of Tourism(DOT) reported.

Inbound visitors for the January to July period rose to 3,109,349 from 2,861,572 arrivals in the same period in 2014.  

For July alone, inbound visitors increased to 489,724, up 14.38 percent from 428, 144 visitors recorded year ago.

Total visitor receipts for the first seven months grew 3.08 percent to P130.22 billion from the P126.33 billion in the same period last year, the DOT also said.

Furthermore, Asia contributed the biggest arrivals for the country in July with 304,930 or 62.27 percent of the total arrivals.

The Americas accounted for 15.78 percent of the market with 77,294 while Europe comprised 9.44 percent contributing 46,233 arrivals. 

Australia and the Pacific shared 4.96 percent while overseas Filipinos registered 4.52 percent of the market share.

By visitor market, Korea remained the top contributor of international tourists for January to July with 762,277 arrivals or a 24.52 percent share in the total inbound traffic.

The United States supplied the second biggest inbound arrival with 481,167 visitors constituting 15.47 percent as of end-July.

The Japanese market also grew and ranked third with a total of 278,884 visitors and a market share of 8.97 percent followed by the recovering market of China which contributed 257,014 visitors. Australia, on the other hand, recorded 137,242 arrivals.

Other top visitor markets include Singapore with 107,402 arrivals, Taiwan with 104,233 arrivals, Canada with 93,403 arrivals, United Kingdom with 91,239 arrivals and Malaysia with 90,947 arrivals.

Moreover, Korea provided P5.520 billion in receipts followed by the United States with visitor receipts at P4.176 billion.

China placed third with P1.334 billion while Japan and Australia contributed P1.003 billion and P969 million, respectively.

On the other hand, spending patterns for July showed that average daily expenditure amounted to P4,863.71, 16.73 percent higher than last year’s P4,166.70.