Tourism receipts hit $4.9b By Roderick T. dela Cruz
The Philippines recorded some 3.092 million international visitor arrivals in 2007, with foreign tourists spending a total of $4.885 billion in the country to easily surpass the contribution of the business process outsourcing sector to the economy.
“2007 was a year of breakthroughs for Philippine tourism, as visitor traffic and tourist spending soared to unprecedented levels,†Tourism Secretary Joseph Durano said in a news briefing at the Coconut Palace in Manila.
Data show that foreign arrivals grew 8.7 percent in 2007 from 2.843 million in 2006 while tourist expenditure soared 41 percent from $3.782 billion.
Visitor receipts moved up with the substantial hike in the average length of stay from 12.06 nights in 2006 to 16.70 nights in 2007. The peso appreciation has made the cost of travel to the Philippines a little more expensive last year, but this was in line with the trend in Asia, Durano said
The international tourism receipts of $4.885 billion, on top of domestic travelers’ expenditures, accounted for 4 percent of the gross domestic product in 2007, surpassing the 3 to 4 percent contribution of the BPO and call center industry.
Tourism boomed despite a tense political period in the fourth quarter, when separate blasts hit a major shopping mall and the House of Representatives and a group of renegade soldiers laid siege on a luxury hotel in Makati.
Durano said the growth in tourist spending translated to the increase in revenues of hotels, restaurants, airlines and other establishments in the tourism sector that employ millions of Filipinos.
The tourism department expects foreign receipts to hit $5.8 billion this year, surpassing the medium-term goal of $5 billion in 2010.
Foreign arrivals are expected to rise 8 to 10 percent year-on-year to about 3.3 million in 2008, said Durano.
“Our ultimate goal is to attract not only more tourists, but also higher value visitors who stay longer and spend more, generating more opportunities for the country,†he said.
Korea emerged as the top tourist market for the Philippines in 2007, with arrivals from the East Asian country rising 14.2 percent to 653,310 accounting for about a fifth of the total arrivals.
Arrivals from the United States grew 2 percent to 578,983 but those from Japan fell 6.4 percent to 395,012.
Other top sources of tourists in the Philippines were China, Australia, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Canada and the United Kingdom.
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Topic: Tourism up despite strong peso, industrial accident and political turmoil (Read 1287 times)