By Ma. Stella F. Arnaldo / Special to the BusinessMirror
THE country’s tourism industry continues its brisk recovery this year, earning some P168.52 billion in inbound revenue from the 1.86 million foreign tourists who arrived in the first four months of the year.
Data from the Department of Tourism (DOT) showed the inbound visitor receipts from January to April 2023, was just a tad shy of the P169.14 billion earned in the same period in prepandemic 2019, from 2.87 million visitor arrivals. The peso, however, depreciated to an average of P54.97 to the dollar in the four months to April this year, compared to the P52.295 average in the same period in 2019.
The expenditure of foreign tourists in the country is calculated based on the inbound arrivals extracted from the arrival and departure data provided by the Bureau of Immigration, and the monthly visitor sample surveys by the DOT of departing international travelers. Such survey shows the tourist’s average length of stay and how much they spent on accommodations, food and beverage, transport services, travel agencies and other reservation services, entertainment and recreation, shopping, and other miscellaneous items or services.
The DOT did not provide the breakdown of nationalities who spent the most during their visit in the country.
Arrivals 42% of ‘23 target
Meanwhile, international visitor arrivals crossed the 2-million mark from January 1 to May 12 this year, or 42 percent of the 4.8-million arrivals target by the DOT for the entire year.
The latest tourism data were revealed by Tourism Secretary Christina Garcia Frasco over the weekend, in a speech at the 29th Mid-Biennial Conference of the Soroptomist International of the Americas Philippines at the Dusit Thani Hotel in Makati.
“Notwithstanding the challenges and difficulties that our country has faced—a pandemic and the various calamities that have come into our shores—the good news is that this has done nothing to break the Filipino spirit or to diminish the beauty of the Philippines,” she said.
South Korea continues to be the top source market for tourists with 487,502 visitors accounting for some 24.4 percent of the total inbound arrivals during the period. This was followed by the United States with 352,894 (17.62 percent); Australia with 102,494 (5.12 percent); Canada with 98,593 (4.92 percent); and Japan with 97,329 (4.86 percent).
The other top markets were China at 75,043 visitors; Taiwan at 62,654; the United Kingdom at 62,291; Singapore at 53,359; and Malaysia at 36,789.
Although South Koreans are now back to their top ranking among source markets this year, similar to the prepandemic era, Chinese travelers are still growing, albeit at a snail’s pace, having just opened in January. In 2019, China ranked second to South Korea among the Philippines’s source markets for tourists, accounting for some 21 percent of the 8.3-million international travelers that year.
China-Kalibo charters resume
Still, Frasco has expressed optimism that the Chinese market will rebound this year, with more flights coming into the Philippines. For instance, chartered flights to Kalibo, an international gateway to Boracay Island, have resumed since April 18.
The Department of Foreign Affairs’ (DFA) outposts in China have been processing and issuing Philippine visas to Chinese tour groups since April 11. The DOT is also working with the DFA for an electronic visa system for Chinese tourists. China’s Ambassador to the Philippines earlier visited Boracay to check on the island’s preparedness in receiving Chinese tourists. (See, “Chinese envoy meets Aklan local chiefs,” in the BusinessMirror, January 10, 2023.)
“The DOT looks forward to equaling, if not surpassing, the number of Chinese visitors we received before the pandemic. We thank our partner agencies especially the DFA for heeding our appeal to resume the processing and issuance of Philippine visas to Chinese tour groups,” said Frasco.
Boracay welcomed a total of 180 Chinese tourists aboard a chartered OK Airlines flight from Changsha on April 18, the first chartered flight from China since the latter reopened its borders. China was the largest tourism market for Boracay prior to the pandemic with 434,175 arrivals. It accounted for some 26 percent of the more than 1.7 million Chinese visitors in the country in 2019.
Image credits: Nonie Reyes