CHINESE tourists helped power the 16.5-percent increase in visitor arrivals in the first month of 2017.
Data from the Department of Tourism (DOT) show Chinese visitor arrivals jumped by some 76.5 percent to 85,948 in January 2017, the largest growth recorded among 12 major tourism markets of the Philippines.
This helped boost the total number of tourists who visited the country to 631,639, from the 542,258 who arrived in January 2016.
“We are now seeing the fruits of President Rodrigo Roa Duterte’s reaching out to China. Doors to more economic opportunities and people-to-people exchanges are wider more than ever, now that ties between Manila and Beijing have seen a new day,” Tourism Secretary Wanda Corazon T. Teo said in a statement.
The huge leap in Chinese visitors in January enabled the market to land in third place among the top tourism markets of the Philippines.
“We have to keep the momentum going now that we are in the implementation phase of the National Tourism Development Plan [NTDP] for 2016-2022, which aims to unleash the potentials of our tourism industry and make it more competitive,” Teo said. She said a lot of impetus was already gained by the country’s successful hosting of the Miss Universe beauty pageant on January 30.
According to the NTDP, the Duterte administration is targeting to attract 6.5 million foreign visitors in 2017, rising annually to 12 million by 2022.
Tourists in the first month of 2017 contributed some P21.7 billion in revenues to the country’s economy. This was a slight dip, however, from the P21.9 billion generated in January 2016, probably brought on by the slowdown in visitor arrivals from the United Kingdom, traditional high spenders. In January visitors from the UK grew only 4.5 percent compared to the 26-percent surge in January 2016.
Also, despite the 76.5-percent jump in Chinese tourists, this growth was actually lower than the 130.2-percent rise recorded in January 2016. In addition, there was an almost 30-percent drop in visiting balikbayan or Philippine passport holders permanently residing abroad (excluding overseas Filipino workers), according to DOT data.
South Korea remained the largest source of visitors for the Philippines, rising by some 4.9 percent to 154,367. This was followed by the United States at 99,435 (up 17.7 percent); China; Japan, 51,516 (up 23.6 percent); and Australia, 27,826 (up 10.1 percent).
Other top sources of tourists in January 2017 were Canada at 24,352 (up 15.4 percent); Taiwan, 21,926 (up 41.3 percent); the UK, 15,747 (up 4.5 percent); Singapore, 12,000 (down by 10.5 percent); and India, 11,805 (up 31.84 percent). India makes its first appearance in the list of top visitor markets of the Philippines edging out Malaysia, 10,215 (down 7.7 percent); Hong Kong, 10,006 (up 23.04 percent); and Germany, 8,917 (up 7 percent).
The DOT also reported that the average expenditure of tourists in the Philippines amounted to P3,659 per day, while each tourist spent an average of P38,823 (about $761) during the month in review. Tourists also stayed an average of 10.61 nights.
South Koreans were the top spenders in January 2017 at P6.5 billion, followed by Americans at some P3.7 billion the Japanese at P2.12 billion, Australians at some P1.6 billion and Canadians at P1.09 billion.
Aside from the recent Miss Universe beauty pageant, other events and travel fairs the DOT and its marketing arm, the Tourism Promotions Board, have lined up to market the Philippines are the yearlong meetings of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations; the ongoing ITB Berlin travel and trade show; Madrid Fusión Manila in April; the Incentive Travel Meetings Exhibitions in Frankfurt in May; Imex America in Las Vegas in October; and the World Travel Market in London in November.