Tourist arrivals in March up by 13%

Domestic tourists up by nearly 14 percent while foreign tourists up by nearly 10 percent

THE Davao City Tourism Operations Office (CTOO) noted a 13.13 percent increase in tourist arrivals in March this year.

Data from CTOO showed that tourist arrivals in March increased to 166,451 from 147,126 in the same period in 2016. Araw ng Dabaw is being held during this month every year.

Davao City Tourism Operations Office (CTOO) Head Generose Tecson said the increase can be directly attributed to the raised awareness about the city especially with the arrival of different business delegates from other countries during the past months preceding Araw ng Dabaw.

“The increase has many factors but most especially it is because of the increased awareness about Davao, our promotions especially of the marketing of the private sector. We hope that Dabawenyos will also help in the campaign by posting nice things about Davao in their social media pages regularly and invite their relatives and friends to come visit Davao,” said Tecson.

The office also noted an increase in the arrivals of domestic tourists and foreign tourists in the same period. Domestic tourist arrivals increased by 13.93 percent to 153,844 from 135,032 while foreign tourist arrivals increased by 9.88 percent to 10,421 from 9,484. However, the arrival of balikbayans decreased 16.25 percent to 2,186 in March this year from 2,610 in the same period in 2016.

"This goes to show that

everybody is really interested in coming to Davao and in seeing what we have here," Tecson said in a separate interview last Saturday, April 22, during the inaugural launch of new AirAsia routes between Davao City and Cebu, Clark, Caticlan, and Puerto Princesa.

She also urged Dabawenyos to work together to sustain the growth of the tourist arrivals in the city.

"We can sustain this by being proud of who we are and remembering that we Dabawenyos are disciplined," Tecson said.

"I would also like verybody to post pictures on Facebook of how nice Davao is and of what we have here. Let us also invite all our friends and relatives to visit," she added.

In 2015, annual tourist arrivals in the city reached up to 1.7 million which was increased by about 100,000 by last year. For 2017, CTOO targets around 2 million tourist arrivals for the city. JPA, RJL

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