Vol. XXII, No. 90 [ BusinessWorld Online ]
Friday, November 28, 2008 | MANILA, PHILIPPINES
ARRIVALS from new sources of tourists posted double-digit growth rates from January to October, outstripping growth from traditional markets, a press release from the Department of Tourism (DoT) yesterday read.
UK dive show
Prospective visitors drop by the Philippine booth at the Birmingham Dive Show held last Nov. 1-2. The booth promoted diving areas like Puerto Galera, Dumaguete, Verde Island, Maricaban Island, MoalBoal, Batangas, Subic Bay, Donsol, Sorsogon, Bohol, and Palawan.
Tourist arrivals rose 4.28% from a year earlier to 2.607 million within that period.
But the top three traditional markets — South Korea, the United States and Japan — still accounted for half the arrivals in that period. Specifically, South Korean arrivals of 515,394 accounted for 19.77%, US arrivals for 18.43%, and Japanese arrivals for 11.72%.
Arrivals from China placed fourth at 140,685, accounting for 5.4% of the total, while those from Taiwan landed the fifth spot at 103,134, accounting for 3.96%.
Data on whether arrivals from traditional tourism markets grew were not released.
In terms of growth rate, the department identified the top new sources of foreign tourists as:
* The Russian Federation, whose arrivals grew 36.7% to 8,422;
* Vietnam, 32.07% to 11,771;
* United Arab Emirates, 30.87% to 9,170;
* Norway, 21.42% to 11,978;
* France, 20.94% to 18,531;
* Spain, 16.73% to 10,464;
* Canada, 15.98% to 77,980, (ninth in terms of volume and accounting for 2.99% of the total);
* India, 15.36% to 26,190;
* United Kingdom, 13.99% to 70,807 (10th in volume, accounting for 2.72%);
* Sweden, 13.05% to 10,328;
* Indonesia, 10.86% to 23,269;
* Australia, 10.38% to 93,693 (seventh in volume, accounting for 3.59% of the total);
* Saudi Arabia, 10.31% to 15,353; and
* Thailand, 10.28% to 26,915.
In a telephone interview yesterday, Tourism Secretary Joseph H. Durano said growth in arrivals amounted to 4% in the 10 months to last October, and that his department expects the same period next year to register 4%-6% growth. Besides opportunities from new tourist sources, Mr. Durano cited "greater demand for recession-driven products like medical tourism." — E. N. J. David
