Over 2m tourists visit Philippines in first half

The government is targeting 4.6 million visitors by the end of this year

G i l b e rt P . F e l o n g c o

More than two million tourists visited Philippines during the first half of the year, the presidential palace reported, citing figures from the Department of Tourism.

“This is good news. From January to June 2012, foreign tourist arrivals have reached 2.14 million,” deputy presidential spokesperson Abigail Valte said recently in an interview aired over government radio station

The local tourism industry targets 4.6 million tourists by the end of this year. The government said that if the quota for 2012 is achieved, it would mean an additional 1.5 million tourists, higher than the record of the previous government.

In 2011, 3.92 million tourists visited the Philippines. The Department of Tourism targets to increase the annual tourist arrivals in the country to 10 million by 2016.

The Philippine government has been working hard to improve its image abroad as a destination for tourists. It launched a tourism campaign, ‘It’s more fun in the Philippines’ in January and released two commercials that was aired over international cable channels.

Valte said that apart from the increasing number of tourist arrivals in the country, the tourism industry is sustaining good figures from its major markets.

She said that most travellers came from South Korea, the United States, China and Taiwan.