MANILA, Philippines — While relaxed quarantine measures have increased domestic travelers, the country’s tourism industry continues to see a slump in inbound visitors in 2021.
In a joint forum with the Philippine Statistics Authority on June 28, the Department of Tourism (DOT) noted a "slow recovery" in local tourism, estimating 37.2 million domestic trips in 2021. This is a 38.16% increase compared to the 26.9 million local trips in 2020.
The numbers, however, are still far from the pre-pandemic domestic trip figures of at least 122 million in 2019.
Meanwhile, inbound visitor arrivals totaled 163, 879 last year, which is an 88.95% dip from more than 1.4 million visitors in 2020.
“The start of 2021 was a struggle, but as the year progressed, the number of arrivals increased,” said Warner Andrada, officer-in-charge of the DOT Office of Tourism Development Planning, Research and Information Management. In January 2021, the country recorded only 6,478 visitor arrivals.
Andrada said that while the number of inbound visitors climbed to 11,961 in March 2021, that figure fell back to 6,036 by April due to travel restrictions posed by the surge in COVID-19 cases. This is also the lowest recorded visitor arrivals last year.
The number of inbound visitors gradually increased for the remainder of the year, where it peaked at 24,353 visitors in December 2021 since the start of the pandemic.
Tourism receipts from inbound visitors plunged to 8.49 billion, which is an 89.67% decrease from the P82.24 billion visitor receipts generated in 2020. Tourism receipts under the pandemic-stricken country continue to pale in comparison to 2019’s tourism receipt figures of P482.15 billion.
According to the DOT, inbound visitor arrivals also included foreign visitors and overseas Filipinos currently residing abroad. Visitor arrival data is sourced from arrival and departure cards, as well as shipping manifests collected by the Bureau of Immigration. —Intern, Jan Cuyco