With a few more weeks to go before 2023 finally comes to an end, the Department of Tourism (DOT) confirmed that the number of foreign tourist arrivals in the Philippines just surpassed the 5,000,000 mark and they raised the stakes even higher for 2024, according to a Malaya Business Insight news report.
To put things in perspective, posted below is an excerpt from the Malaya news report. Some parts in boldface…
After breaching 5 million in tourist arrivals as of December 12, the Philippines hopes to attract 7.7 million tourists in 2024.
Christina Frasco, secretary of the Department of Tourism (DOT) in her accomplishment report yesterday, said the Philippines has exceeded its 4.8 million goal when it logged 5.06 million visitors as of yesterday.
These tourists contributed P440 billion in receipts to the economy or more than double than the P209 billion recorded last year.
“In 2024, we are more than optimistic that we will once again reach our targets as we have proven in the past two years. For next year, we’re targeting 7.7 million international arrivals. I understand that this is not yet pre-pandemic numbers of 2019 at over 8.2 million international arrivals, but what I can assure you is that we will push as hard as we can and fully activate our convergences with other government agencies to reach this target and bring us closer to pre- pandemic numbers even as we grapple with many forces beyond our control globally and locally,” Frasco said.
Frasco also disclosed the DOT has proposed P5 billion infusion for the construction of new tourism roads in addition to the construction of tourism roads for 2024.
Frasco said recovery rate on arrivals to pre-pandemic of Philippine tourism is at 65 percent as of November, faster than the 62 percent average rate in Asia-Pacific as of September.
She said in terms of international visitor receipts, Philippine recovery is at 95 percent of the P458 billion visitor receipts in 2019.
This is a 267 percent increase versus the same period last year with a little over 2.6 million visitor arrivals in 2022. Tourism created over 5.35 million jobs which means that for every 100 Filipinos, 11 are employed in tourism related jobs.
According to Frasco, the Philippines has already recovered nearly 80 percent of its pre-COVID international incoming seat capacity.
Let me end this piece by asking you readers: What is your reaction to this recent development? Now that the Philippines has recorded more than 5 million foreign tourist arrivals, do you think there is still a chance for the figure to reach 6 million by December 31, 2023? Do you think the 2024 target of 7.7 million foreign tourist arrivals is achievable?
You may answer in the comments below. If you prefer to answer privately, you may do so by sending me a direct message online.
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