DoT chief: Phl visitor arrivals reach 2 million, tourism revenue hits P100 billion

The Department of Tourism on Monday, 14 November, reported that visitor arrivals to the Philippines have reached the 2-million mark and accounted for more than P100 billion in estimated visitor receipts since the country's relaxation of border restrictions to foreign tourists last 10 February 2022.

"Our latest figures have reached well beyond the 1.7 million tourist projections of the DoT. This goes to show that there is such a huge demand for travel into our beautiful country and that the Marcos administration's prioritization of tourism is placing our country on the right track to recovery. We therefore must meet this with the continued implementation of enabling mechanisms that will convey not only the country's openness to welcome more tourists but also conduciveness to tourism business and livelihood opportunities for our fellow Filipinos," Tourism Secretary Christina Garcia Frasco said.

The DoT's report as of 14 November 2022 showed a total of 2,025,421 visitor arrivals to the Philippines. Of this number, the majority or 1,487,343 (73.43 percent) are foreign tourists, while 538,078 or 26.57 percent are overseas Filipinos.

Meanwhile, according to the DoT's statistics office, visitor arrivals from February to September 2022 raked in an estimated P100. 7 billion, recording a 1938.14 percent increase from the P4.94 billion for the same period last year.

In terms of number of foreign tourist arrival count per country, the United States of America continues to hold the first place with 385,121 (19.01 percent). South Korea and Australia came in second and third, with 285,583 (14.10 percent) and 96,297 (4.75 percent), respectively.

Landing on the fourth and fifth spots are Canada with 89,248 (4.41 percent) and the United Kingdom with 77,267 (3.81 percent).

Other countries that made it to the top 10 list of countries with the most tourist arrivals to the Philippines are Japan with 75,564 (3.73 percent), India with 41,292 (2.04 percent), Singapore with 39,801 (1.97 percent), Malaysia with 35,128 (1.73 percent), and Vietnam with 32,970 (1.63 percent).