PHL posts 11.54 percent rise in tourist arrivals for 2017 - DOT

Photo grabbed from DOT website (ctto)

On Tuesday, the Department of Tourism announced that tourist arrivals in the country grew by almost 12 percent in the first 10 months of 2017 compared to the same span in 2016.

The DOT cited with data showing an 11.54 percent increase in tourist arrivals.

Records show 4,908, 017 tourists came in from January to October 2016 while a total of 5,474,310 visited the Philippines in the same month period this year.

The department recorded P243.23 billion revenue for international visitor receipts from January to September which is 36.28 percent from P178 billion income last year.

According to DOT Secretary Wanda Corazon Tulfo-Teo, South Koreans remain the country’s top visitor market with arrival total of 1,332,141 which is 24.33 percent of the total arrivals this year.

Chinese visitors followed with 810,807 arrivals, comprising 14.81 percent of the total count.

"International visitor arrivals continue to increase with the influx of Chinese tourists, becoming the second largest in number to come to the Philippines from January to October this year," the DOT secretary said.

Meanwhile, visitors from the United States had dropped to third place with 785,269, which is 14.34 of the total market share, followed by Japan with 490,857 representing 8.97 percent of the total. Then on the fifth place is Australia 206,443 or 3.77 percent.

"With the surge in Chinese and Indian arrivals, we are optimistic to hit the target of at least 6.5 

million as set by the National Tourism Development Plan for 2017-2022", the DOT chief said.

The DOT also noted the significant increase of visitors from China and India, arrivals from these two countries rose to 39.28 percent and 20.28 percent.

"The department will continue an aggressive marketing efforts, including through social media. We will promote emerging or developing destinations to entice more visitors from across the globe," Teo said.

As part of its strategy, the department has launched "It's More Fun in the Philippine Farms" and also revived the "Bring Home a Friend" to reach the goal of 12 million tourists arrival by 2022.

Source: DOT