Arrivals rise 16 percent

International visitor arrivals in the Philippines hit an all-time high of 1.148 million in the first quarter of 2012, up by 16 percent from 989,501 arrivals recorded a year ago.  “During this period, visitors to the Philippines increased by 16 percent to hit almost 1.15 million. From this record, we have now achieved 25 percent of our international visitor target of 4.6 million for this year,” said Tourism Secretary Ramon R. Jimenez Jr.

“The world is now starting to see that ‘It’s More Fun in the Philippines’ is not just a bunch of words on a streamer.  It is a competitive argument for choosing the Philippines as one of the world’s top tourist destinations.  Philippine tourism is poised to surge forward as we receive a steady increase of tourist arrivals, as seen in the first quarter of this year,” he said.

Secretary Jimenez said the rosy tourism outlook was highlighted during the 45th annual meeting of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in Manila when the Department of Tourism (DOT) convened foreign and local delegates in a tourism forum.

In that forum, Tourism Undersecretary Daniel Corpuz presented the recently completed National Tourism Development Plan (NTDP) highlighting the country’s growth potentials and investment opportunities available to the private sector, investors, bankers, fund managers and local government units.  

The top five tourist-generating countries in the first quarter are South Korea, the United States, Japan, China, and Taiwan. The Korean market maintained its big lead over the other producers, contributing 265,031 visitors for a share of 23.1 percent of the total tourist arrivals during the quarter.   This is a 16-percent increase compared to last year’s arrivals of 228,398 visitors.