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Friday, March 29, 2024

International visitor arrivals increased 14% to 2m in four months

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International visitor arrivals increased 14.3 percent year-on-year in the first four months to breach the 2-million mark, led by the influx of East Asian tourists, the Tourism Department said Friday.

The department said East Asian countries accounted for 49.2 percent of total international visitor arrivals in the January-April period.

“These encouraging tourism figures can be attributed to the department’s aggressive marketing activities, international events held in the country and the foreign markets’ increasing awareness of the product offerings of the different Philippine destinations,” said Tourism undersecretary Benito Bengzon Jr.

Data showed the East Asian region remained the biggest source of arrivals with 1,020,434 tourists.  South Korea was still the biggest source of tourists from the region with 481,596 arrivals in the four-month period, or about 23.22 percent of the total arrivals.  

The department said except for Hong Kong and Macau, all countries from the East Asian markets posted increases, with China showing the biggest growth of 88.86 percent with total arrivals of 238,523 this year.

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Another high-growth market was Taiwan which posted an increase of 28.94 percent over 2015.

The United States ranked as the second biggest market with 303,951 visitors, up by 7.2 percent from 283,577 arrivals in the same period in 2015.  This market constituted 14.7 percent of the total arrivals.

China was the third largest market, with 238,523 arrivals or an 11.5 percent share of the total arrivals.   Japan placed fourth, contributing 183,620 visitors or 8.9 percent of the total inbound traffic.  

Australia ranked fifth with 88,496 arrivals, comprising 4.3 percent of the total.

Rounding up the top ten visitor markets are Taiwan with 71,656 arrivals; Canada with 68,288 arrivals; the United Kingdom with 63,039 arrivals;  Singapore with 61,033 arrivals; and Malaysia with 48,835 arrivals.

Among the countries which posted substantial growth in inbound traffic to the Philippines in the four-month period were France with 23,980 tourists, up 24 percent; Germany with 35,639 arrivals or 20.9 percent growth; Sweden with 11,588 arrivals or 20.2 percent growth; and India with 29,578 arrivals, up 22.2 percent.

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