Profile of Filipino tourists
A survey by the National Statistics Office (NSO) found that about 23.1 million Filipinos who are 15 years old and above have travelled to another place within the country from April to September 2010. These domestic travellers represent 36.6 percent of the estimated 63.2 million Filipinos who are 15 years old and over, according to the 2010 Household Survey on Domestic Visitors.
The number of female travellers were almost same as those of male travellers. The majority of domestic travellers (53.0 percent) were in the ages 15 to 34 years, of which, 29.3 percent were in the age group 15 to 24 and 23.7 percent were in the age group 25 to 34.
Most of the domestic travellers (98.6{b72d12ecee9fade90e10854e79e98a671cbb00dc34440b2ee5ef5de31595176e}) had arranged for their own trips. Those who availed of package tours accounted for only 2.4 percent. On the average, a domestic traveller had two trips during the reference period. Each trip had an average of two places being visited.
Pleasure or vacation was the main purpose of a trip for more than half of the travellers (53.3 percent) followed by visit to friends or relatives and attendance of family gatherings (36.9 percent).
Of the total domestic travellers, about 21.6 million or 93 percent incurred expenses during their most recent trip. The average expenditure of travellers during their most recent trip was PhP1,680. On the other hand, travellers whose main purpose of trip was for pleasure or vacation reported an average expenditure of PhP1,807. Travellers spent largely on accommodation and shopping.
Among the independent travellers, those with expenses during their most recent trip comprised 94.3 percent while among package tour travellers, 77.6 percent. Independent travellers spent PhP1,601, on the average, during their most recent trip. Package tour travellers, on the other hand, spent three times as much (PhP4,091) than the independent travellers.
Forty-three percent of the travellers whose main purpose of travel was for pleasure or vacation stayed overnight during their most recent trip. A large proportion of these overnight travellers stayed for 2 to 3 nights (43.2 percent). The average number of nights spent was five.
The National Capital Region (NCR) was the most frequently visited place with 7.1 million domestic visitors from April to September 2010, of which 3.0 million travelled mainly for pleasure or vacation. The other top destinations in Luzon were Cavite, Batangas, Bulacan, and Laguna, each with more than 1.4 million travellers.
For the long weekends, Filipinos travelled the most during the Holy Week mainly for vacation (575,000 travellers) and secondly, during Labour Day (350,000 travellers). During these long holidays,the majority stayed overnight in the place visited.
Meanwhile, 149,000 Philippine residents travelled to another place outside the Philippines from April to September 2010. Six in every ten of them were females (61.0 percent) and four in every five were 15 to 54 years of age. On the average, each traveller visited one place in the foreign country. The top four foreign destinations were: Singapore, United States of America, Hong Kong and Guam.