International arrivals drop 79% due to COVID-19

MANILA, Philippines — The Bureau of Immigration has announced a 79 percent reduction in the number of international travelers coming to the country this year as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Immigration Commissioner Jaime Morente revealed in a statement that based on their statistics, only more than 3.5 million passengers arrived here from January to Dec. 25 this year compared to the 16.7 million who came in 2019.

Of the arrivals this year, 2.03 million were Filipinos while 1.54 million were foreigners. Compared to the same period last year, the 16.7 million international travelers consisted of 8.7 million Filipinos and 7.9 million foreigners.

Morente said they were not surprised by the huge drop in figures, noting that a similar trend for international travel was recorded worldwide and was largely attributed to the pandemic.

He explained that the government continues to implement travel restrictions on international travel, especially among foreign tourists who are still prohibited from entering the country.

“We expect these passenger statistics to remain low perhaps until early next year. But we remain hopeful that the international travel sector recovers soon, especially once the vaccine reaches our shores and confidence in travel is restored,” Morente said.

Candy Tan, port operations division chief, reported that from a promising 1.53 million arrivals last January, the volume dropped to 858,859 in February and to 363,548 in March. It was on March 14 that President Duterte issued a proclamation placing the entire Luzon under enhanced community quarantine.

She said passenger arrival volume was more than 800,000 from April up to December, many of whom were returning overseas Filipino workers who were repatriated from their host countries.

“The number of foreigners who arrived have steadily increased from only 1,591 in April to almost 18,000 this December, which is still very low compared to last year when foreigner arrivals averaged more than 700,000 a month,” Tan added.