The country’s tourism industry created around 100,000 jobs last year, according to data released by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) on Thursday.
Data from the Philippine Tourism Satellite Accounts (PTSA) showed there were 5.3 million Filipinos employed in the sector in 2017, a 0.9-percent growth from the 5.2 million posted in 2016.
However, this was the first-time growth in the tourism sector which fell below 1 percent since 2001. Before 2017 the slowest growth of employment in the industry was 1.9 percent in 2005, while the fastest was 10 percent in 2006.
“Share of employment in tourism industries to total employment in the country was recorded at 13.1 percent in 2017,” the PSA said.
The tourism subsectors that posted the highest contribution to employment were passenger transport and accommodation and food and beverage, which accounted for 1.2 million and 1.7 million workers, respectively.
There were only 35,000 jobs for travel agents, tour operators and tourism guides, which accounted for the smallest share in total tourism jobs.
Meanwhile, employment in passenger transport grew 3.5 percent, while jobs in accommodation and food and beverage contracted 0.9 percent.
The largest growth in employment was in decline for travel agents, tour operators and tourism guides at 6.1 percent, while employment in the recreation, entertainment and cultural services contracted 11.7 percent.
Meanwhile, PSA data showed that the tourism sector accounted for 12.2 percent of the economy in 2017.
Tourism direct gross value added to gross domestic product amounted to P1.93 trillion at current prices in 2017. This is higher by 24.2 percent than the previous year’s record of P1.55 trillion.
Inbound tourism expenditure, which refers to the expenditure of nonresident visitors (foreign visitors and Filipinos permanently residing abroad) within the Philippines, grew by 43.9 percent in 2017, amounting to P448.6 billion, from P311.7 billion in 2016.
The PSA said inbound tourism ranked third among the country’s biggest export items in 2017, after semiconductors at 21.9 percent and miscellaneous services at 15.7 percent.
“Compared to the country’s total exports, the share of inbound tourism expenditure was 9.2 percent,” the PSA said.
Domestic tourism expenditure, which includes expenditure of resident visitors within the country either as domestic trip or part of an international trip, grew by 25.5 percent to P2.64 trillion in 2017, from P2.11 trillion in 2016.
Domestic tourism expenditure represents 22.8 percent of the household final consumption expenditure in 2017.
The PTSA is compiled by the PSA is based on the international recommendations for tourism statistics and tourism satellite accounts of the United Nations World Tourism Organization.