By Donnabelle
L. Gatdula (The Philippine Star) | Updated May 28, 2013 - 12:00am
MANILA,
Philippines - Tourist arrivals continue to pick up in the first four months of
2013 to 1.65 million, up 10.6 percent from the same period in 2012, a Department
of Tourism (DOT) official said.
DOT
Undersecretary Daniel Corpuz told reporters on the sideline of the AsiaMoney
and Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) forum “Leisure, Tourism & Gaming in the
Philippines” that for the month of April alone, arrivals reached about 377,000.
He said
tourists from South Korea remain on top of the list, followed by the US, Japan
and China.
Corpuz said
they expect the arrival of Korean tourists to remain strong and continue to
grow more than 20 percent.
With the
continuing rise in arrivals, Corpuz said they don’t see the need to revise
downward their target of 5.5 million tourist arrivals for the year despite the
travel moratorium imposed by the government of Taiwan.
“We continue
to be optimistic that there’s not much impact to the government’s tourism
revenues,” he said.Business (
Article MRec )
It was noted
that for the month of May and June, there would be around 9,000 travel
cancellations from Taiwan.
He said they
would intensify efforts to lure more tourists from other parts of the world to
compensate the loss incurred from the Taiwan government’s decision to impose a
travel ban to the Philippines.
According to
Corpuz, they still look forward to a strong tourist arrival figure for the
months of November to December.
“Essentially,
these months are peak season. We believe that our target (5.5 million) is
achievable,” he said.
He said the
DOT would continue its efforts to convince other government agencies and the
private sector to invest more on tourism-related projects.
On the
private sector side, the DOT official noted that there is also a commitment
from Philippine carriers to increase their fleet by 33 aircraft which will be
completed within January to March next year.
For the
government side, he said they would be pushing for more bilateral contacts with
other countries when it comes to expansion of airline routes.
Corpuz said
they are also working out ways of expediting the process of travel documents
like issuance of visas.
For the first
three months of the year, tourists arrival went up 11 percent to 1.27 million.
At present,
tourism revenues represent 6.2 percent of the country’s GDP and contributes
about 4.2 million in employment in both tourism and transport sector.
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