A House leader on Tuesday expressed optimism that South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol’s visit to Manila will boost bilateral relations notably in the Philippines’ tourism sector.
Quezon City Rep. Marvin Rillo, vice chairman of the House Committee on Tourism, said “South Korea has been the Philippines’ No. 1 supplier of foreign visitors for years, and we are counting on Mr. Yoon’s visit to encourage even more Koreans to spend their vacations here.”
“We could use a larger number of recreational travelers from South Korea to help our highly labor-intensive tourism industry create additional jobs for Filipinos,” Rillo added.
Rillo issued his observations even as the Department of Tourism (DOT) is embroiled in a controversy over the new “Love the Philippines” branding program’s use of a campaign video with footage of locations outside the country.
The South Korean leader’s plan to visit the Philippines was conveyed by Lee Sang-Hwa, Seoul’s new ambassador to Manila, when he presented his credentials to President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. at Malacañang Palace on Monday.
“Mr. Yoon’s visit will surely boost not only the government-to-government but also the people-to-people relations between the Philippines and South Korea. This augurs well for our tourism enterprises,” Rillo said.
From January to June this year, a total of 673,841 South Koreans visited the Philippines. They accounted for 25 percent of the 2,470,798 foreigners that traveled to the Philippines in the first semester, based on DOT statistics.
A total of 1,989,322 South Koreans traveled to the Philippines in 2019 – the year prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. They accounted for 24 percent of the 8,188,477 foreigners that arrived in the Philippines that year.
Despite harsh global air travel restrictions, a total of 773,347 South Koreans managed to visit the Philippines in the three years from 2020 to 2022.
Nearly 29 million South Koreans traveled overseas every year before the pandemic, based on data from the U.S. Department of Commerce’s International Trade Administration.
