The country’s tourism receipts, or the expenditures incurred by international inbound visitors, including payments to national carriers for international transport, have achieved a 100-percent recovery, surpassing the global average.

“The Philippines has already surpassed a hundred percent recovery in visitor receipts, outpacing the global average of 94 percent,” said Tourism Secretary Christina Garcia Frasco in an exclusive interview on DAILY TRIBUNE’s digital show Straight Talk.

For this year, the DoT is aiming to hit 7.7 million international tourist arrivals, saying it is achievable as foreign tourist arrivals to date are more than 3.6 million.

Frasco said the tourism rebound started in earnest in 2023, which she considered a phenomenal year for Philippine tourism.

She said tourism receipts contributed 8.6 percent to the country’s gross domestic product, according to records of the Philippine Statistics Authority.

“Tourism has also played a pivotal role in uplifting the lives of our fellow Filipinos, with 6.21 million employed in 2023, and tourism accounts for nearly 13 percent of the entire national employment rate. This happened during the term of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. with its vision to transform the Philippines into a tourism powerhouse in Asia,” she said.

The tourism chief pointed out that although the country aims to attract 7.7 million international visitors this year, these figures are dynamic due to ongoing industry challenges.

The Department of Tourism, she said, is diligently striving to achieve its targets for tourist arrivals and receipts, directing promotional efforts to key markets like South Korea, the United States, Canada, Australia, Japan and Europe, as well as China, a significant source of outbound tourists worldwide.

According to Frasco, the DoT continues to collaborate with international airline partners to enhance connectivity between emerging markets and the Philippines.

Tourism infra

As envisioned in the National Tourism Development Plan (NTDP) 2023-2028 of the Marcos administration, Frasco said the DoT, in collaboration with the Department of Public Works and Highways and the Department of Transportation, has laid out several initiatives to improve the country’s infrastructure, which she thinks needs a great push.

“The first of the seven pillars of the NTDP is infrastructure. From roads to bridges to airports to seaports — all of this hard infrastructure plays a critical component in Philippine tourism success. That is why we forged convergences with various government agencies,” Frasco said.

The DoT secretary revealed that at least 531 kilometers of tourism roads had been rehabilitated and constructed, adding that the DoT, DPWH, and the DoTr have strongly lobbied for more tourism road investments, resulting in P96.6 billion in infrastructure spending in 2023.

Further, Frasco said her department has clamored for more tourism investments in the accommodations sector, as well as tourism facilities, seeing a balloon in tourism investments in 2023 by P.5 trillion.

“And so, the idea is to increase our number of rooms from its present over 221,000 to 440,000 by 2028, as well as to increase the number of flights coming into the country, considering that at present the Philippines ranks sixth as far as the number of international flights and seats coming into the country,” she said.

For the improvement of accessibility and connectivity within the archipelagic country, which remains a challenge for the government, Frasco noted that their collaboration with the DoTr has resulted in promising recovery in terms of international flights coming in and international seats, as well as in the expansion of domestic direct flights.

“We also saw the necessity of improving our seaports, especially since the Philippines is now a beloved cruise destination in Asia. Expansion and rehabilitation projects of seaports and cruise ports are now in place, under the auspices of the Philippine Ports Authority (PPA),” she said.

Cruise ports

Last month, PPA general manager Atty. Jay Daniel Santiago reported that among the ports under the PPA that cater to cruise vessels are the ports of Currimao in Ilocos Norte; Salomague in Ilocos Sur; the Port of Manila; Bohol, and El Nido in Palawan.

The PPA vowed to develop more cruise terminals near tourist sites Siargao, Camiguin, Boracay, Palawan and Puerto Galera.

Frasco disclosed the DoT is collaborating with the Department of Information and Communications Technology to improve WiFi connectivity in the country’s tourist destinations.