Philippine boosts tourism ties with South Korea

MANILA, Philippines — The Philippines further strengthened its tourism ties with the Republic of Korea with the signing of a five-year tourism cooperation program.

“With this renewed pledge on tourism cooperation between the Philippines and Korea, we are hopeful we can sustain and intensify the already strong ties with Korea that we enjoy,” said Department of Tourism (DOT) Secretary Bernadette Romulo-Puyat.

The program, valid from 2019 to 2024 or five years from date of signing, aims to introduce joint activities that will bolster two-way tourism promotion and align tourism efforts between the Philippines and Korea, facilitate deeper and meaningful interactions between Filipinos and Koreans, and strengthen overall cooperation of the two countries on matters concerning tourist safety, security and quality assurance.

Puyat emphasized that Korea has been the Philippines’ top source market of foreign arrivals for nine years now.

In 2018, the DOT recorded 1,624 million arrivals from Korea, or a 23 percent share of the 7,128 million total arrivals that year.

“Needless to say, South Korea is undisputed in

its position as the top source market of the Philippines for nine consecutive years. To sustain the momentum, the DOT will embark on a more aggressive marketing campaign to continue capture a bigger chunk of the Korean market,” Puyat said.

She added that the DOT-Korea will be undertaking activities that will support the marketing efforts and collaborate with the travel trade on developing new thematic tour products for specific market segments.

“Also in the pipeline are product training programs for sub-agents in Busan and Daegu. On top of this, we will encourage more airlines to fly direct to international gateways other than Manila from key cities in Korea,” Puyat said.

The influx of Korean tourists continued this year with a total of 1,450,792 arrivals from January to September, a 20.97 percent growth versus the same period last year. Korean tourists make up 23.55 percent of current arrival total.

The tourism chief attributed the encouraging figures to the improved air connectivity between the two markets, noting the creation of 14 additional flights to the Philippines from Korea. These flights include new routes such as Daegu-Kalibu-Daegu, Incheon-Bohol-Incheon and Muan-Clark-Muan.

“The positive growth only inspires us to constantly improve our work at the department and to show more Koreans to come visit us and find out why It’s More Fun in the Philippines,” Puyat said.

She added that aside from sun and beach tourism, Koreans come to the Philippines mostly for education tourism portfolio or English as a second language.