International visitor arrivals surpass 2m

INTERNATIONAL visitor arrivals in the Philippines breached the 2-million mark as of May 2, reflecting the rebound of the global travel and tourism industry, data from the Department of Tourism showed over the weekend.

Tourism Secretary Christina Frasco said the country recorded 2,002,304 international visitor arrivals from Jan. 1 to May 12, 2023, exceeding the 2022 full year target of 1.7 million foreign visitors.

“Notwithstanding our challenges and difficulties that our country has faced, a pandemic and the various calamities that come into our shores, the good news is that this has done nothing to break the Filipino spirit or to diminish the beauty of the Philippines,” she said.

South Korea delivered almost a quarter of the total number of visitors in the Philippines with 487,502; followed by the United States with 352,894 or 17.62 percent; Australia with 102,494; Canada with 98,593; and Japan with 97,329.

Rounding out the top 10 tourism markets for the Philippines are China with 75,043 visitors; Taiwan with 62,654; the United Kingdom with 62,291; Singapore with 53,359; and Malaysia, 36,789.

The DOT said inbound tourism also generated P168.52 billion in receipts from January to April, or 782.59 percent higher than P19.09 billion achieved in the same period last year.

Frasco said the DOT is optimistic about the Philippines being a tourism powerhouse in Asia.

“We are at the cusp of the massive success of tourism in the Philippines. You can feel it, you can hear it, you can see it, it’s our time Philippines, it’s our time to become Asia’s leading tourism powerhouse, and with your help, we can achieve just that,” Frasco said.

The DOT is keeping its 4.8-million target arrivals for 2023.

The United Nations’ World Tourism Organization said its barometer shows that the sector’s swift recovery continued into 2023, with international arrivals reaching 80 percent of pre-pandemic levels in the first quarter of 2023.

It said some 235 million tourists travelled internationally in the first three months, or more than double the same period of 2022.

“Tourism has continued to show its resilience. Revised data for 2022 shows over 960 million tourists travelling internationally last year, meaning twothirds [66 percent] of pre-pandemic numbers were recovered,” it said.

The Middle East saw the strongest performance as the only region exceeding 2019 arrivals ( up 15 percent) and the first to recover pre-pandemic numbers in a full quarter.