Department of Tourism targets high spenders

MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Tourisms (DOT) is looking at new markets this year to attract higher spending tourists.

Tourism Undersecretary Rolando Canizal said apart from its continued focus on the Chinese market, the DOT is also targeting new source markets. 

“Aside from China, we are also looking at other new markets like France, Spain, the Middle East even as far as Israel,” Canizal said.

“These markets have a very big outbound market and at the same time, we are looking at quality type of tourists who will be able to spend more in the country and stay longer so that we will be able to generate more revenues for our country,” Canizal said.

In 2017, the Philippines registered a total of 6.6 million foreign arrivals, up 10.96 percent from the previous year.

This was driven by arrivals from the Chinese market, which jumped 43.33 percent to 968,447.

In the same period, the Philippines saw a 17 percent rise in the number of French arrivals to 64,777.

There was also an influx of tourists from Spain with a total of 36,954 arrivals last year, higher than the 32,097 arrivals in 2016.

Tourism Undersecretary Benito Bengzon Jr. earlier told reporters the DOT would continue to look for new geographic markets this year as it expands its footprint across the globe.

“Two markets that we will be focusing on very closely are Turkey and Israel,” Bengzon said.

The Philippines has witnessed a rise in the number of tourists from both Israel and Turkey last year.

In 2017, a total of 17,446 tourists from Israel arrived in the Philippines, 4.31 percent higher than the year ago.

A total of 8,408 tourists from Turkey, meanwhile, came to the country last year, up 6.55 percent.

“We have to choose where we can be competitive. We cannot be everywhere. And in some cases, the competition is so fierce in other parts of the world that we’ll lose our plans even before we can get started,” Bengzon said.

Last week Tourism Secretary Wanda Corazon Teo flew to Israel for the 24th International Mediterranean Tourism Market(ITM), the largest professional tourism fair in the East Mediterranean. 

Teo also met with Israel’s Minister of tourism Yariv Levin, who spoke about the possibility of hiring Filipinos in the tourism industry of Israel.