The Department of Tourism’s “It’s More Fun in the Philippines “ continues to effectively draw into the country strong visitor arrivals, with 1,602,253 tourists recorded for January to March 2016, which constitutes a 15.12 % growth over the 2015 figures.
In terms of business revenue, estimated total visitor receipts for the period amounted to Php 67.74 billion, compared to Php 58.96 billion in 2015.
March 2016 vis-à-vis March 2015 saw an increase of 11.86 % in visitor arrivals , with figures for March 2016 at 510,270 arrivals compared to 456,163 arrivals in March 2015. In terms of spend, tourism activities for the month this year generated an estimated Php 18.31billion, which is a growth of 6.85% from the Php 17.13 billion earnings for March 2015.
Koreans believe that it really is more fun in the Philippines, as this market still is the top source of tourist arrivals for the country, with a total of 383,544 Korean tourists from January to March 2016, and is also consistently the top spending market with receipts accumulating to Php 4.09 billion, according to the March arrival figures of the Philippine Department of Tourism (DOT).
The top 12 tourism markets of the Philippines, by volume, for the 1st quarter 2016 included : Korea (with 383,544 visitors or 23.94 % share of total arrivals), USA (231,233 visitors or 14.43% share of total arrivals), China (184,512 visitors or 11.52% share of total arrivals), Japan (143,624 visitors or 8.96% share of total arrivals), Australia (67,265 visitors or 4.20% share) , Canada (53,301 visitors or 3.33% share), Taiwan ( 52,102 visitors or 3.25% share) , United Kingdom (49, 097 visitors or 3.06% share), Singapore (44,441 visitors or 2.77% share), Malaysia (36,601 visitors or 2.28% share), Hongkong ( 32,749 visitors or 2.04% share), and Germany (28,621 visitors or 1.79% share of total arrivals).
The markets outside the top twelve countries , which have also shown signs of favourable activity and volume are : India, with 6,943 arrivals or 8.23 % growth for the period over last year ; and France, with 5,915 arrivals or 24.95% growth.
Cruise tourism is one of the fastest growing tourism segments for March 2016, with 2946 visitors reported at the port of Manila, and 7,256 visitors at the ports of Palawan (El Nido and Puerto Princesa).