According to the Department of Tourism (DOT) the Philippines saw a 11.43 percent increase in international visitors during the first half of 2019 having a total of 4,133,050 international tourists.
Tourism chief Bernadetter Romulo-Puyat said that they had already breached the 4 million mark within the first 6 months of the year. Seven years ago, it took the entire year to reach 4 million tourists. The Philippine tourism industry has indeed come a long way with better and increased connectivity. New, rehabilitated and expanded airports have contributed much to this growth.
They promoted the lesser-known but emerging destination and expanded their portfolio of tourism products. They successfully attracted a large and diverse set of foreign travellers and managed to sustain their growth in the highly-competitive South East Asian region.
The tourist arrivals reached a growth rate of 21.41% at 643,780 arrivals versus the 530,267 in June 2018 for the month of June 2019.
The top source markets were South Korea, China and the United States took third place followed by Japan and Taiwan.
The US Homeland Security decided to lift its public notice on travel to NAIA after significant improvements in the airports security operations.
Puyat said that with the recent developments of the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to rescind its Public Advisory on security issues at NAIA, they are expecting more travelers from the US to visit the Philippines in the coming months.
Tags: NAIA, Philippines
