PH logs 2M international visitors in first 5 months of 2023
It is only the second quarter of the year but the country has already surpassed its 2022 baseline target of international tourists, as it recorded more than 2 million foreign arrivals, as of May, the tourism department reported.
The Department of Tourism (DOT) in a release said data from January 1 to May 12, 2023 showed 2,002,304 international visitor arrivals during the period.
DOT noted that the number exceeds the 1.7 million foreign visitors that arrived in 2022.
South Korea topped the visitors' list during the period with a total of 487,502 or 24.35%. The United States is second on the list with 352,894 total visitors or 17.62% of the total number.
This is then followed by Australia, Canada, Japan, China, Taiwan, United Kingdom, Singapore, and Malaysia, respectively.
“We are at the cusp of the massive success of tourism in the Philippines,” tourism chief Christina Garcia Frasco was quoted as saying.
“You can feel it, you can hear it, you can see it, it's our time Philippines, it's our time to become Asia's leading tourism powerhouse and with your help, we can achieve just that,” Frasco added.
The tourism department likewise recorded a triple-digit year-on-year surge in inbound visitor receipts from January to April.
During the four-month period, tourism earnings jumped to P168.52 billion from P19.09 billion in the same period last year.
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