DOT: More than 4M tourists visited the Philippines from January to June

MANILA, Philippines— The Department of Tourism on Monday announced that it is already halfway to its international tourist arrival target and have recorded more than 4.1 million foreign tourist arrivals in the first half of 2019.

The DOT said there are 4,133,050 international tourists who visited the Philippines from January to June this year. This figure is 11.43-percent than from the previous year.

For June 2019 alone, the total number of tourist arrivals hit 643,780 which is a 21.41% increase against the 530,267 recorded arrivals from last year.

The DOT said South Koreans are still the top tourists while China comes second as top source market followed by the United States, Japan and Taiwan.

Tourism chief Bernadette Romulo-Puyat, who is delighted at the foreign tourist growth, said that seven years ago, it took an entire year to reach four million tourists.

“The Philippine tourism industry has indeed come a long way with better and increased connectivity. New, rehabilitated and expanded airports have contributed much to this growth,” Puyat said.

“By expanding our portfolio of tourism products and by developing and promoting our lesser-known but emerging destinations, we have attracted a large yet diverse set of foreign travelers and have sustained our growth in the highly-competitive South East Asian region,” she added.

In February, Puyat said the DOT is targeting around 8.2 million foreign tourist arrivals in 2019, a million higher than 2018.

READ: WATCH: DOT eyes 8.2 million foreign tourists in 2019

Meanwhile, the DOT chief also welcomed the US Homeland Security’s move to lift its public notice on travel to the Ninoy Aquino International Airport. The decision was made after the “significant improvements” in the airports security operations.

"With the recent development of the US Department of Homeland Security to rescind its Public Advisory on security issues at NAIA, we can expect more travelers from the US to visit the Philippines in the coming months, Puyat said.

In July, NAIA was named world's 44th best airport for business travelers by the United Kingdom’s business class flight specialist Globehunter.

READ: NAIA is world’s 44th best airport for business travelers