TOURISM stakeholders are celebrating the arrival of 2 million tourists into the country, after having suffered for over two years of poor earnings and joblessness for many.
Latest data from the Department of Tourism (DOT) showed some 1.5 million foreign tourists accounting for close to 74 percent of the 2.03 million visitor arrivals from February 10 to November 13. The rest, at 538,078, were overseas Filipinos. In contrast, total arrivals from February to October 2019 was 6.08 million, still some way to go for the industry to reach pre-pandemic levels.
Visitor receipts from February to September, meanwhile, were estimated at $1.8 billion or P100 billion, with the peso having dropped to as low as P59 to the greenback during the reference period. For the same period in 2019, visitor receipts were $6.13 billion, or P318.7 billion, with peso averaging P52:$1 that year.
The Philippines has been receiving back-to-back accolades from tourism award-giving bodies, boosting its desirability among travel buyers. The country was recently recognized as the World’s Leading Dive Destination and the World’s Leading Beach Destination for 2022 at the 29th World Travel Awards Grand Final Gala Ceremony in Muscat, Oman this month.
Palawan was also recently hailed the Most Desirable Island (in the rest of the world) at the 21st Wanderlust Travel Awards handed out by the UK’s longest running publication, in London. The island province also landed on Fodor Travel Guide’s Go List for 2023.
Credit to stakeholders
Tourism stakeholders expressed optimism on their industry’s upturn. “Breaching 2 million visitor arrivals for 2022 is a welcome surprise for the stakeholders. Not knowing what to expect when the country reopened last February, we were managing expectations,” said Tourism Congress of the Philippines (TCP) President Jose C. Clemente III in a statement sent to the BusinessMirror. “However, we were relieved to see that the Philippines was still one of the preferred destinations in Asia which has led to good restart for the industry.”
The TCP earlier projected 1.7 million arrivals by yearend, but adjusted this to 2.1 million after its members recorded surges in bookings from overseas clients. The highest number of tourists usually arrive in December with balikbayans (homecoming Filipinos) visiting their families.
Clemente credited “stakeholders [who] have also worked hard to make this happen despite the challenges such as limited accessibility, confusing entry requirements, manpower issues, and so on. We look forward to a continued recovery of the tourism industry for 2023 and beyond.”
He stressed, “The increased tourist arrivals have made it possible for many travel-related companies to rehire workers and give more jobs to stakeholders.”
A ForwardKeys report released during the recent World Travel Market in London showed the Philippines among the top performing destinations in Southeast Asia, based on actual ticket bookings. It was just 55 percent behind 2019 arrivals, faring better than Singapore, which was 69 percent less than 2019 arrivals. (See, “PHL among most visited Southeast Asian destinations,” in the BusinessMirror, November 9, 2022.)
Top source market
For her part, Tourism Secretary Christina Garcia Frasco credited the Marcos administration for the rebound in the tourism sector. “This goes to show that there is such a huge demand for travel into our beautiful country and that the Marcos administration’s prioritization of tourism is placing our country on the right track to recovery. We therefore must meet this with the continued implementation of enabling mechanisms that will convey not only the country’s openness to welcome more tourists but also conduciveness to tourism business and livelihood opportunities for our fellow Filipinos.”
According to the DOT report, tourists from the United States continued to dominate arrivals in the Philippines at 385,121, accounting for 19 percent of total. This was followed by tourists from South Korea at 285,583 (14.10 percent); Australia at 96,297 (4.75 percent); Canada at 89,248 (4.41 percent); and the United Kingdom at 77,267 (3.81 percent).
Other countries that made it to top 10 list of source markets for tourists were: Japan with 75,564 tourists (3.73 percent); India with 41,292 (2.04 percent); Singapore with 39,801 (1.97 percent); Malaysia with 35,128 (1.73 percent); and Vietnam with 32,970 (1.63 percent).