NADI, Fiji—With over 2 million tourist arrivals nationwide in the first quarter of the year, the Department of Tourism (DOT) remains confident that will be able to hit its target of 8.2 million visitors this year.
In a briefing on the sidelines of the 52nd Asian Development Bank (ADB) Annual Meeting in this Pacific island nation, Tourism Secretary Bernadette Romulo Puyat said there was a 7.59 percent growth in tourist arrivals in the January to March period this year.
Romulo Puyat said based on data from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), this translated to as much as 2.2 million tourist arrivals in the first quarter,higher than the 2.05 million posted in the first quarter of 2018.
“Well, there are a lot of factors. We have a lot of direct flights, Cebupac, PAL, AirAsia, [they] now have more direct flights. In fact, when we met with both airlines, actually, even with AirAsia, they told us they have new routes in Japan, in Australia. [These] direct flights really help [increase tourist arrivals],” Romulo Puyat said.
Romulo Puyat said in March alone, tourist arrivals grew 11.13 percent to 714,309 visitors compared to 642,757 arrivals during the same period in 2018.
Last year, had the closure of Boracay not happened during peak summer months, Romulo Puyat said the country would have been able to exceed its target of 7.4 million tourist arrivals.
In 2018, Romulo Puyat said there were around 7.1 million local and foreign tourists who visited various parts of the country. She said this was despite the 6-month closure of Boracay which could have yielded 500,000 or more tourists.
“We were celebrating because I really didn’t expect, I thought it would be almost the same to last year [because of Boracay]. So that’s why we’re celebrating. From 6.6 [million last year] to 7.1 [million]. [There were] 6.6 [million tourists in] 2017 (then we had) 7.1 million for 2018 and mind you, it [Boracay] was closed April 26, we lost May, [the height of] summer,” Romulo Puyat said.
In terms of the breakdown of the tourist arrivals, Romulo Puyat said they are still waiting for the domestic tourist arrivals data, but she said domestic tourism was also alive and well in the country fueled by millennials.
She said the government initially targeted 89 million domestic tourists by 2022 but in 2017, this target has already been breached at 97 million. The latest data will be released in June.
In terms of foreign tourists, Romulo Puyat said she did not have the numbers as of press time but said Koreans were still the top tourists in the country followed by the Chinese, Americans, Japanese and Australians.
Still, the Philippines is keen on attracting more tourists from various parts of the world. She said the number of Japanese tourists can still increase.
This is the reason the DOT chief is accompanying the President in his upcoming state visit to Japan. She will also be accompanying the ambassadors of Japan, Singapore, Spain, Italy and France to Boracay.
This is part of the country’s bid to not only showcase Boracay but, more important, show the world what sustainable tourism looks like. She also said it is also a way to prove there are no security threats in major Philippine destinations.
“It’s never been done at the DOT but it’s for them also, to show them that ‘hey, its safe here, its beautiful’. You have to see it to appreciate it. And I’ll probably start bringing them to other tourist destinations, probably lesser known. Our focus now in the DOT is to promote destinations that are as beautiful, but are unknown,” she added.
‘Hot’ Asia
In an Asian Development Blog, Principal Economist at ADB’s Economic Research and Regional Cooperation Department Donghyun Park said, “Asia is one of the hottest destinations” right now.
Since 2011, Park and two other experts—Scott Wayne, the President of SW Associates, and ADB Senior Economics Officer Cynthia Castillejos Petalcorin—said global international arrivals have been growing at an average annual rate of 4.8 percent, adding about 55 million new visitors each year, to reach 1.4 billion in 2018.
International tourist receipts expanded by 4.3 percent per year since 2011. This added an average of $54 billion annually, to reach $1.34 trillion in 2018.
Domestic tourism too has made impressive strides, with global receipts hitting $4.1 trillion in 2018, far more than international tourism.
Of the 1.4 billion visitors who traveled abroad in 2018, some 343 million went to Asia. And, of the $1.34 trillion of international tourist receipts in 2018, $390 billion was spent in Asia.
Asia thus accounts for 25 percent of international visitors and 29 percent of international tourist spending. International arrivals rose by 65 percent in Asia between 2010 and 2018, compared to 47 percent globally.