Philippines powers tourism boost

 Wednesday, May 17, 2023 

Visitor arrivals to the Philippines passed 2 million for the first five months of 2023, surpassing targets the country’s Department of Tourism set.

A Philippines news agency reported that data released by the Department of Tourism showed the country welcomed  2,002,304 international visitors from 1 January to 12 May, which exceeded the 1.7 million foreign visitors in 2022.

Notwithstanding the challenges and difficulties that our country faced, a pandemic and the various calamities that come into our shores, the good news is that these have done nothing to break the Filipino spirit or to diminish the beauty of the Philippines, DOT Secretary Christina Garcia Frasco said in a news release.

“We’re very optimistic for the prospects in our country in terms of being a tourism powerhouse in Asia, anchored on the strength of our Filipino culture as well as the values of sustainability, resilience and global competitiveness.”

South Koreans made up almost a quarter of the visitors, with 487,502 (24.35%), followed by US citizens at 352,894 (17.62%), Australians, 102,494 (5.12%), Canadians, 98,593 (4.92%) and Japanese, 97,329 (4.86%).

DOT reported tourism receipts stood at PHP168.52 billion from January to April, 782.59% higher than in 2022.

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