BI sees 70% decline in number of Chinese tourists

MANILA, Philippines - Does the 2010 Luneta hostage crisis that left eight Hong Kong tourists dead still rankle Chinese tourists?

Bureau of Immigration (BI) officer-in-charge Siegfred Mison yesterday said that there has been a substantial decline in the number of Chinese tourists visiting the country in the past three years.

“There was a big drop, about a 70 percent drop. Before, the (number of Chinese tourists) was close to one million but now they are only 200,000 to 300,000,” Mison said.

BI records showed that from Jan. 1 to Dec. 5, Korea ranked first with 1,010,056 tourist arrivals; the United States came in second with 649,664; Japan at third with 371,122; People’s Republic of China at fourth with 312,395; Australia at fifth with 181,585; Canada at sixth with 123,404; Taiwan at seventh with 101,162; Singapore at eighth with 97,927; United Kingdom at ninth with 97,371; and Malaysia at the 10th spot with 97,134.

Before, China had the most number of tourists visiting the Philippines.

When asked for the possible cause of the decline, Mison hinted that the hostage-taking incident might have been one of the reasons.

Malacañang previously admitted that the hostage crisis is not yet resolved.

When President Aquino met with Hong Kong chief executive Leung Chung-yin during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Leaders’ Summit in Indonesia last October, both leaders reportedly expressed mutual intent to put closure to the incident.

Some progress has since been achieved to resolve the standoff. Recently, compensation was given to one of the survivors of the hostage incident to help pay for her surgery.