Tourism sector urged to focus on high-spending tourists

The Department of Tourism (DOT) should focus on attracting higher spending tourists rather than emphasizing the number of arrivals in 2018, an industry expert said.

“The tourism sector should start putting more emphasis on the spending of tourists more than the arrival numbers. Instead of looking into the numbers, it’s time that we focus on what matters more, what weighs more than the arrival numbers,” John Paolo Rivera, associate director for the Asian Institute of Management (AIM) Dr. Andrew Tan Center for Tourism, told the

STAR in an email. “Our policies, promotions, infrastructure, offerings, packages should allow tourists to stay longer and spend more while in the country,” Rivera said.

Rivera said this would allow the tourism experience in the Philippines to be packaged as a destination worth staying and worth spending for.

“We should also capitalize on the increasing number of high-spenders in tourism as well as ecotourists who are willing to spend more than the usual mass tourists and backpackers,” Rivera said.

Based on latest available figures from the DOT, visitor receipts surged 36.28 percent in the first nine months to P243.23 million, compared to the P178.48 million in the year before.

“The month of July recorded the biggest receipts of P33.53 billion while the highest growth of 117.23 percent was recorded in September,” the DOT earlier said.

In September, inbound visitor receipts more than doubled to P30.89 billion from P14.22 billion in September 2016.

Average daily expenditure (ADE) of visitors for the same month registered at P6,722.02, while the average length of stay of visitors was at 9.30 nights.

In addition, the average per capita expenditure of visitors for September was pegged at P62,514.77.

Rivera earlier identified the ecotourism sector as a market that the DOT should focus on as it attracts higher spending tourists and also accounts for one of the highest expenditure among tourists.

He said seven percent of all international travel expenditure are generated by nature tourism.

“A pertinent characteristic of ecotourism is that it is not for the backpackers,” Rivera said.