Tourists in the Philippines Increase 11.1 Percent

International visitor arrivals grew 11.1 percent year-on-year in the first half of 2013, according to the Department of Tourism (DOT).  Arrivals in the January-June period reached 2.38 million, up from 2.14 million a year ago.

The figure represents 43 percent of the target arrivals for the year.  The tourism industry started the year with high hopes and expectations as arrivals for the months of January to March produced more than 400,000 visitors.  

The Korean market continued to be the top tourist contributor for the country as it provided 585,282 arrivals for a share of 24.6 percent of the total.  

This market is consistently growing with an increase of 23.3 percent for the first semester of the year.  As the first visitor market to surpass the 1 million arrivals last year, this market is projected to produce more visitors this year.  

The second biggest contributor of arrivals was the United States, which produced arrivals of 364,506 for the first six months of 2013.  This market constituted 15.3 percent of the total and expanded by 2.9 percent compared to its arrivals of 354,259 the previous year. The Japanese market increased 7.3 percent, providing 209,812 visitors to the country.  The fourth biggest group is the Chinese market with arrivals of 199,157.

This market recorded the highest increase in arrivals of 32.1 percent among the top ten visitor markets of the country.  

The fifth biggest visitor volume was supplied by Australia with 103,286 arrivals.

Completing the top ten visitor markets are Singapore with 86,290 arrivals, Taiwan with 86,076 arrivals, Canada with 68,430 arrivals, Hong Kong with 65,696 arrivals and United Kingdom with 60,234 arrivals.  

Meanwhile, the high growth markets were Russian Federation with 35.2 percent growth (18,970 arrivals), Saudi Arabia with 31.1 percent growth (20,858 arrivals), Indonesia with 27.5 percent growth (22,619 arrivals), France with 22.2 percent growth (21,280 arrivals), India with growth of 20.8 percent (28,124 arrivals), and Thailand with growth of 16.2 percent (24,149 arrivals).