Philippines tourism rises over 9% in first six months of 2019

Manila: For the first five months of 2019, a total of 3,489,270 tourists visited the Philippines, marking a 9.76 per cent increase from last year’s figures, the country's Department of Tourism (DOT) recently announced.

“The numbers are very encouraging. From 3,178,984 tourists recorded from January to May in 2018, we are already close to breaching the 3.5 million mark this year. This only shows that the preservation of our environment can go hand in hand with economic gains," Tourism Chief, Bernadette Romulo-Puyat, said.

Puyat said she was also pleased to note that for the month of May, tourist arrivals saw an impressive 15.62 per cent growth from 537,743 last year to 621,719, the highest month-per-month growth rate this year.

The country’s number one source market was South Korea with 788,530 Jan-May arrivals, a 11.76 per cent growth rate comprising 22.6 per cent of total arrivals.

China trailed closely behind with 733,769 arrivals, a 30.96 per cent increase and a market share of 21.03 per cent.

Sustaining its third and fourth rankings are the USA with 472,469 (+1.98 per cent) and Japan with 281,988 (+2.19 pe rcent).

Another market with a remarkable double digit growth rate was Taiwan in fifth place with 128,986 tourists (+27.24 per cent).

Australia with 123,851 (+2.7 per cent), Canada with 114,605 (+5.01 per cent), and the United Kingdom with 92,914 (+3.49 per cent), posted positive growth rates as well, placing sixth, seventh, and eighth, respectively.

Singapore followed in ninth with 64,951 (-14.38 per cent) with Malaysia winding up the top ten markets with 62,144 (+1.81 per cent).