DOT records 2 million foreign visitors

CEBU, Philippines — The Philippines has breached the two-million mark in international arrivals, surpassing the baseline target of the Department of Tourism (DOT) last year with P168.52 billion in inbound visitor receipts.

“Notwithstanding our challenges and difficulties that our country has faced, a pandemic and the various calamities that come into our shores, the good news is that this has done nothing to break the Filipino spirit or to diminish the beauty of the Philippines,” Tourism Secretary Christina Garcia Frasco said while announcing the good news in a forum in Makati City.

Frasco said that the DOT is optimistic that the Philippines will become a tourism powerhouse in Asia.

“We are at the cusp of the massive success of tourism in the Philippines. You can feel it, you can hear it, you can see it, it’s our time - Philippines.  It’s our time to become Asia’s leading tourism powerhouse and with your help, we can achieve that,” she added.

Based on the DOT’s data from January 1 to May 12, 2023, the country recorded 2,002,304 international visitor arrivals. This has already exceeded the entire year’s target for 2022 of 1.7 million foreign visitors.

South Korea delivered almost a quarter of the total number of visitors for the Philippines with 487,502 (24.35 percent) followed by the United States of America in the second spot with 352,894 (17.62 percent); Australia with 102,494 (5.12 percent); Canada with 98,593 (4.92 percent); Japan with 97,329 (4.86 percent) to complete the top 5 source markets.

The rest of the top 10 are China (75,043), Taiwan (62,654), the United Kingdom (62,291), Singapore (53,359), and Malaysia (36,789).

DOT also revealed that they have recorded P168.52 billion in inbound visitor receipts from January to April 2023.

This is 782.59 percent higher than the P19.093 billing in tourism revenues generated in the same period last year. — Mitchelle L. Palaubsanon/GAN (FREEMAN)