By Lailany P.
Gomez | Posted on May. 03, 2013 at 12:02am |
[
manilastandardtoday.com ]
The Tourism
Department said Thursday visitor arrivals in the first quarter grew 10.8
percent to a record 1.27 million from 1.15 million a year ago.
This is the
second time the tourism sector sustained the 1 millionth arrival in the first
three months.
The sector is
also on track of achieving the year-end target as arrivals have reached 23
percent of the target for the year,
Tourism said.
Double-digit
gains were posted by the Russian Federation at 26.9 percent, followed by Hong
Kong, 25 percent; Korea, 23.93 percent; India, 22.10 percent; Singapore 15.42
percent; Australia, 12.65 percent; and Malaysia, 11.86 percent.
By regional
grouping, arrivals from the Association of Southeast Asian Nation recorded a
14.82- percent overall growth, while the East Asian market rose 14.15 percent.
Among the key markets, only Taiwan experienced a decline in visitor arrivals.
Visitor
arrivals in March rose 11.28 percent with 417,392 visitors from 375,083
year-on-year.
Tourism noted
this was the fourth consecutive month that the volume of arrivals passed the
400,000 mark.
“This upward
trend could be attributed to the upcoming summer season which is a peak season
for the tourism industry,” it said.
Korea remains
the leading visitor market, cornering 25.83 percent of the total inbound
traffic with 328,454 arrivals. The Korean market rose 23.93 percent, the
highest among the top five major markets.
Meanwhile,
arrivals from the United States reached 186,065 or 14.63 percent of the overall
visitor volume. The Japanese market contributed the third biggest arrivals with
114,269 visitors, accounting for 8.99-percent share of the total arrivals.
China
registered 98,242 visitors, or a share of 7.73 percent. The Taiwanese market
was fifth with 53,867 arrivals, sharing 4.24 percent to total inbound traffic.
Other key
markets providing significant volume of arrivals for the first quarter of 2013
were Australia with 53,679 arrivals; Singapore, 41,524; Canada, 38,486; Hong
Kong, 36,005; United Kingdom, 32,475; Malaysia, 27,212; and Germany, 22,491.
Tourist
arrivals in the Philippines are still hampered by limited airline flights into
the country as result of civil aviation concerns. The government took steps to
regain Category One Status from the US Federal Aviation Administration, which
could also lead to lifting of a ban by the European Union on flights into the
country.
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