Chinese travelers register highest growth in Region 7

While it landed third in the list of Central Visayas’ top visitor markets, China contributed the highest growth rate in tourist arrivals in the first 10 months of 2016.

Partial data from the Department of Tourism ( DOT) 7 released Thursday showed an increase of 65.26 percent in Chinese arrivals from January to October. Taiwan recorded the second highest, with a growth rate of 33.63 percent.

China’s warming relations with the Philippines is a welcome development for tourism.

According to DOT 7, some chartered flights from China to Cebu have started arriving since Jan. 15. The first batch came from Wuhan via China Eastern Airlines while another batch of tourists from Chengdu arrived last Jan. 17 via Philippine Airlines.

The DOT is anticipating more Chinese tourists from Wuxi and Wenzhou via chartered flights this Jan. 22 and 25.

Cebu’s connection to China will also get a boost after the Department of Foreign Affairs ( DFA), quoting Xiamen Air Travel General Manager Deng Dongtao, announced that XiamenAir will launch new routes from Cebu to Fuzhou and Quanzhou in 2017.

The Chinese carrier reopened the Xiamen- Cebu route in March 2016.

Tourism Secretary Wanda, in a report said, she expects up to three million Chinese tourists to visit the country in 2017 after her successful trip to Beijing, China last October.

During the visit, the DOT signed a memorandum of agreement on tourism cooperation between the Philippines and China, which will give the tourism department a better opportunity to market the Philippines to potential Chinese travelers.

Korea maintained the region’s major contributor of tourists followed by Japan, China, United States, Australia, Germany, France, United Kingdom, Taiwan and Canada.

Of these top 10 markets, four logged negative arrivals during the period— namely Australia, Germany, United Kingdom and Canada, which had the biggest decline.

Central Visayas welcomed 4.3 million arrivals from January to October this year, up by 10.68 percent from 3.9 million arrivals recorded in the same period last year. Foreign arrivals went up by 9.66 percent to 1.8 million. Domestic tourists, on the other hand, grew by 11.70 percent to 2.5 million tourists.