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With an increase of 11.67% from the
year prior’s record of 4.8 million tourist visits, the Philippines’ tourist
record rose to 5.26 million in 2015.
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| (L-R) DOT ASec. Arturo Boncato; Governor Edgar Chatto, Province of Bohol; Congressman Josef Franz Alvarez, Province of Palawan |
In the same year, the country’s tourism income which was posted to be at $4.84 billion on 2014 has grown to become $5 billion the year after.
As per record, the Philippines’ top
sources of visits came from the North-Eastern region of Asia, namely Japan,
Korea, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Macau which cumulatively comprised the almost
50% of the overall population of tourists (49.8%).
Quoting Arturo P. Boncato, Assistant
Secretary of the Tourism Department during the ASEAN Tourism Forum (ATF), “Korea
remains the top market with 24.99% share in total inbound traffic.”
Confident in the coming growth of
tourism in the country, this year’s target number of tourists visiting the
Philippines is expected to rise to as much as 6 million unique individuals.
Mr. Boncato added, “Our
competitiveness ranking (in the 2015 Global Travel and Tourism Competitiveness
Report by the World Economic Forum) improved because they’ve seen the
Philippines to be very open: working on obstacles to people mobility and visa
requirements have been relaxed.”
On the other hand, quoting the
Philippine President, Benigno S.C. Aquino III while speaking at the recently
held forum at the Philippine International Convention Center in Pasay, “[While]
Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and Vietnam lead the pack (in tourism), the rest
-- the Philippines, included -- are catching up.”
With the purpose of bolstering
tourism in the Philippines, the country’s focus last year was aimed at
constructing and upgrading of airport in Puerto Princesa which was expected to
expand on its former 350,000 carrying capacity to up to 2 million. It is slated
to be finished sometime in 2018.
In other places like Bohol, it’s
Panglao International Airport is said to be completed by 2017 which could cover
to as much as 1.7 million people when finished.
Other airports which are currently
going through a makeover, upgrade, or rebuilt includes the Davao Airport, Iloilo
Airport, and Bacolod-Silay Airport, and plenty others more not mentioned.
Not just solely focused on airports
and expanding on its capacity, other means to improve on tourism were also
taken steps to such as the improvement on roads which leads to travel
destinations and the application of the so-called “pocket open skies policy” which
tries to liberalize the country’s airports but with the sole exception of the
heavily congested Ninoy Aquino International Airport in Manila.