Chinese tourists top visitors to Philippine island-resort Boracay during first two months of 2019

Chinese topped the list of foreign tourists who flocked to the Philippines’ premier island-beach resort Boracay in the central Philippines during the first two months of 2019, data from the Malay Municipal Tourism Office showed on Tuesday.

Tourism officer Nelia Gumboc told the Xinhua News Agency in a telephone interview that from January to February, 107,164 Chinese tourists visited the island off Alkan Province famous for beaches with unsullied fine talcum powder-sand, sapphire seas and spectacular sunsets.

Chinese tourists comprised 49 percent of the 340,309 foreign visitors on the island, lower than the 375,993 that visited during the same period in 2018.

The temporary six-month closure of Boracay in 2018 to make way for a massive cleanup of the island and the limit imposed by the government on the number of visitors allowed to the island led to the decline of visitors this year.

However, the Philippine Department of Tourism (DOT) is optimistic that more tourists will visit the island in the coming months after the cleanup to see the gentle coastlines and magnificent sunsets.

South Korean tourists came in the second with 68,453, according to Gumboc. Americans are the third highest source market with 5,502, she added.

For February alone, Gumboc said Chinese tourists tallied 59,768 arrivals and South Koreans 34,466. A total of 1,255,258 Chinese tourists visited the Philippines in

2018, DOT data showed.

The Duterte government is banking on Chinese tourists to visit not only Boracay but other beaches as well, including Siargao in the southern Philippines, Iloilo in the central Philippines, Palawan, La Union in the northern Philippines, Romblon and Siquijor also in the central Philippines, among others.

Philippine tourism stakeholders vowed to improve infrastructure and services in key tourism sites frequented by Chinese tourists. They recently urged the government to relax visa requirements for the Chinese in a bid to lure more Chinese tourists into the Philippines.