Monday, May 19, 2008 [ sunstar.com.ph ]
THE Department of Tourism (DOT) 7 reported a 7.44-percent increase in visitor arrivals in Cebu from January to February this year from a year ago.
DOT records also show that there was an 8.85-percent increase in foreign travelers and 6.25-percent growth in domestic travelers coming to Cebu for the first two months of the year.
There were 127,561 foreign travelers and 147,638 domestics visitors, totaling 275,199 visitors.
For the same period in 2007, there were only 256,146 visitors, the sum of 117,187 foreign travelers and 138,959 domestic visits.
“Our focused marketing is paying off and the results of more chartered direct flights are showing. Cebu is becoming very well known as a good and ideal tourist destination,” said Tourism Undersecretary Phineas Alburo in a phone interview.
Koreans still remain the top tourist market of Cebu, although their number dropped 14.71 percent 41,828 in 2007 to 35,677 in the first two months of this year.
Koreans
Alburo said Cebu is already very “well-known” in Korea. He attributed the “slight” decrease to be the result of Koreans visiting other provinces in the country that are recommended to them before making their stop in Cebu, which the DOT expects in the next few months.
There is also a 42.95-percent decrease in the number of tourists coming from other Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) countries, namely, Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
From 3,667 visitors in January to February 2007, the figure went down to 2,092 for the same period this year.
The DOT 7 reported 40 travelers coming from Laos last year but none this year. And while there were 44 visitors coming from Myanmar last year, DOT recorded only one in the first two months this year.
Visitor arrivals in Cebu from Europe are making a promising growth rate with 25.22 percent increase. In 2007, there were 12,852 travelers. This year, it went up to 16,093 travelers.
Promising
Tourists from Germany and United Kingdom are identified as the top two visitors of the province from Europe.
Another promising tourist markets are New Zealand (with 33.33 percent growth in tourist arrivals) and Australia with 12.07
percent increase.
Middle East tourists, though, posted a 17.04-percent decrease, with 857 visitors in 2007 and only 711 travelers this year.
Alburo believes that with the country’s active involvement in activities among Asean countries, visitor arrival figures will increase.
He added that the country is slowly penetrating the potential tourist market in the Middle East, such as Saudi Arabia.
“Right now, we are trying to get Russians to come here because we found out that they wanted to visit a tropical destination, opposite to their cold climate. We are capitalizing on that. We are placing marketing representatives in Russia (and) tied up with travel agents,” he said.
DOT 7 records also show Cebu’s potential as a magnet for domestic travelers and overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) since the number of visiting OFWs grew to 1,961 from 447 in 2007. (NRC)
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