Tuesday, March 26, 2013
http://www.sunstar.com.ph/MANILA -- Foreign visitors to the Philippines hit record high during the first two months of this year, the Department of Tourism (DOT) said Tuesday.
Tourism Secretary Ramon Jimenez Jr. said that international tourist arrivals reached to 854,187, a double-digit growth of 10.5 percent from 772,989 of the same period in 2012.
"The country extended its record-breaking run by surpassing the 400,000 arrival mark for both January (436,079 arrivals) and February, making it three months in a row since December 2012 with 442,088 arrivals—an uptrend that is expected to continue until the summer months," he said.
Visitor arrivals for February soared by 15.52 percent to 418,108 arrivals, marking the first time that this month achieved more than 400,000 visitors, he said.
Jimenez attributed the growth in February on the Chinese New Year, with tourists from Hong Kong posting a 93.8 percent growth rate, China registering 69.87 percent, Macau at 44.05 percent, and Taiwan at 20.67 percent.
Countries from the member-countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) also registered double-digit gains, he added.
For the period January to February 2013, Korea remained the top contributor with 241,116 visitors, growing by 25.6 percent and cornering slightly more than a quarter of the total inbound traffic.
The United States came in next with 120,868 or 14.2 percent of the visitor count. Arrivals from Japan comprised the third biggest arrivals of 73,621 visitors. The list is followed by China with 69,610; Taiwan with 37,921; Australia with 34,095; Singapore with 25,800; Canada with 25,338; Hong Kong with 23,097; Malaysia with 18,947; United Kingdom with 18,563; and Germany with 13,774.
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