Koreans remain the top foreigners who visited the country from January to August this year, but the total foreign visitors dropped by more than 1 percent, compared to the same period last year, according to the Bureau of Immigration.
Records from the BI showed a total 4,352,929 foreign arrivals were recorded from the eight-month period, compared to 5,831,996 in 2017 or less than 1,471,067.
The bureau said China came in the second while on the third spot is the United States.
Data received from the BI showed that from January to August 2018, at least 1,214,463 Koreans visited the country while in 2017, there were 1,734,246 or lower by 519,783.
Last year, Chinese visitors recorded an arrival of 1,095,188 but this year, only 973,614 came to visit the country, the BI record showed.
Despite the dispute in the South China Sea, the Philippines and China continue to maintain good diplomatic relations and may have boosted last year’s number of Chinese visitors.
Chinese visitors may increase as the holiday season nears and that thousands of Chinese prefer to celebrate the Chinese new year which falls on Feb. 5.
For Japanese, only 467,461 came into the country this year, a decline of 161,302 visitors compared last year with 628,763.
Almost all the top 10 foreign visitors in the Philippines dropped this year, the BI statistics showed.
Australians came in fifth with 187, 685; followed by Canadians at 170,689.
Other nationals were from Taiwan with 171,461 arrivals, UK at 158,392; Malaysia, 107,404, Singapore, 92,503 and Germans, 65,921.
The BI record also revealed that only 1 visitor each from Puerto Rico, Aland Islands, Sao Tamo Principe, and the Virgin Islands visited the Philippines.
