MANILA, Philippines — Foreign tourist arrivals continued to rise, reaching nearly five million in the first seven months of the year.
Based on data released by the Department of Tourism (DOT), foreign arrivals climbed 12.4 percent to 4.85 million in the seven months to July compared with the same period last year.
Korea remained the country’s top source market during the period with a total of 1,113,274 arrivals, followed by China with 1,038,409.
Other markets in the top five are the US with 663,116 arrivals; Japan with 382,634; and Taiwan with 192,195.
Completing the top 12 markets are Australia (164,378), Canada (146,000), United Kingdom (125,371), Singapore (94,061), Malaysia (84,815), India (80,383) and Germany (62,179).
Tourism Secretary Bernadette Romulo-Puyat attributed the continued influx of foreign tourists to the sustained support from industry stakeholders, government, host communities, investors and foreign travel trade counterparts.
“We remain inspired knowing that the private sector, other government agencies and civil society continue to support our sustainable tourism programs and the More Fun brand campaign,” she said.
“The Build Build Build program and other convergence programs, on the other hand, are key to improving our competitiveness and attractiveness,” Puyat said.
“We enjoin more support for our sustainable tourism efforts not only in key destinations, but also in all areas to continually drive inbound traffic and spread the benefits of tourism to the countryside. After all, tourism is everybody’s business,” she added.
Under the National Tourism Development Plan (NTDP), the country targets 8.2 million visitors this year, 15 percent higher than the 7.1 million arrivals in 2018.
Puyat earlier said that apart from the arrival numbers, more emphasis should be given to the revenue and economic contribution of the tourism sector.
As of the first half of the year, visitor receipts grew 17.57 percent to P245 billion.
“These economic numbers are exciting, but the real purpose of why the government is working hard to push these numbers up year after year is for the Filipino people,” Puyat said.
The tourism chief pointed out the sector’s growing contribution to the economy as well as the rise in the number of employment it produces. Based on data from the Philippine Statistics Authority, tourism contributed 12.7 percent to the country’s gross domestic product in 2018 at P2.2 trillion.
The sector was also responsible for 5.4 million jobs in the same year.
“At the end of the day, it is the number of lives changed for the better by tourism that would truly count,” Puyat said.