MANILA, Philippines — Amid advisories warning against traveling to the Philippines early in the year and inflamed by the Quirino Grandstand hostage crisis, the country has attracted more tourists in 2010 with inbound visitors reaching 3.52 million, earning for the government some $2.49 billion (approximately P112.55 billion). The Department of Tourism (DoT) Wednesday reported that the 2010 tourist arrivals surpassed its 3.3-million target, indicating that there is still strong confidence in the Philippines as one of the emerging tourist destinations nations in Asia.
On a year-on-year comparison, visitor receipts went up by 11.3 percent to P112.55 billion or US$ 2.49 billion from P106.38 billion or $ 2.23 billion in 2009.
The DoT attributed the uptick in revenues to a 10.8 percent increase in visitor average daily expenditure while average length of stay remained at eight nights. Per capita expenditure of visitor during the year was recorded at US$ 672.28.
DoT statistics showed visitors from the East Asia region accounted for 44.4 percent of the total arrivals.
By nationality, visitors from Korea top, accounting for 21 percent or 740,622 of arrivals while the United States taking the second slot with 600,165 visitors for a share of 17 percent of total tourist traffic.
Taiwan and Japan, which in the past years posted declines in arrivals, rebounded with double digit growth of 39.2 percent and 10.3 percent, respectively.
Arrivals from China and Hong Kong posted 20.9 percent and 8.9 percent increases, respectively, with the month of December demonstrating a positive growth in visitor count following the decline in September on account of the August tragedy.
Visitors from Australia recorded an all time high of 147,469 arrivals during the year for an 11.4 percent growth rate. Inbound tourists from the Southeast Asian region accounted for 8.4 percent of the total visitor count.
The European market recorded double digit gain in 2010 with the Russian Federation growing at 33.6 percent followed by the Scandinavian countries (12 percent), France (11 percent), United Kingdom (6.5 percent), and Germany (5 percent). For the Middle East region, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia remained the key source markets as visitor arrivals grew by 21.4 percent and 16.3, respectively.
From the global financial crisis of 2009 to last year’s hostage-taking incident, the tourism sector has shown an ability to bounce back from major challenges.
This is largely due to the strength of the top destinations and the strong emotional connection of Filipino hospitality with people all around the globe.
Jackie Lynne Oiga, Manila Bulletin
