Not only ‘Koreanovelas,’ but real Koreans coming to RP — DOT

After the invasion of the "Koreanovelas," now come the Koreans themselves.

Korea posted the biggest number of tourist arrivals in October, surpassing the United States as the country’s leading tourism market, the Department of Tourism (DOT) said yesterday.

Tourism Secretary Joseph Ace Durano said Koreans had contributed the most tourists with 42,044 while the United States followed closely with 39,781 tourists in October.

"Koreans accounted for 20.3 percent of the total inbound traffic in October and posted a growth of 42.8 percent compared to last year’s 29,445 arrivals," Durano disclosed.

While tourists from the United States grew by 9.8 percent despite the travel warnings issued by the American government to its citizens against traveling to the country, Durano said, it settled only for second place.

Aside from Korea and United States, the other top tourism markets in October were Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, China, Australia, Singapore and the United Kingdom.

The Japanese contributed third biggest arrivals followed by China, which recorded a triple digit increase of 188.9 percent from only 3,684 arrivals to 10,644 tourists.

According to Durano, the country recorded a total of 206,792 international arrivals in October and helped push the visitor arrivals to 2.1 million in the first 10 months of the year.

"Auguring well (for) the tourism industry (are) the consistent positive growth rates in arrivals from January to October with the East Asian region maintaining its position as the largest contributor of arrivals by region," he said.

Durano expressed confidence that the country would reach 2.6 million international arrivals this year with the continuing growth in arrivals of tourists from various countries.