International visitor arrivals in the Philippines reached over 5 million as of Dec. 13 and contributed P439 billion to the Philippine economy, the Department of Tourism (DOT) said Tuesday.
DOT Secretary Christina Frasco said in a presentation at the Dusit Thani Hotel in Makati City the agency remains committed to its mandate to improve the tourism sector.
She said more visitors are expected to add to the tally since the holiday season is the peak period for travel. More than 1.4 million airline seats were booked as of November 2023, representing an 80-percent recovery of pre-COVID incoming seat capacity.
Citing the United Nations World Tourism Organization report, Frasco noted that while the average recovery rate of tourism in the Asia Pacific (APAC) region was at 62 percent from January to September 2023, the Philippines showed a recovery of over 65 percent from January to November.
She said that in terms of visitor receipts, the Philippines also recovered faster than expected.
“As of November, we’re now at over 95 percent of our P458 billion visitor receipts for 2019. This is 267-percent increase compared to the same period last year,” Frasco said.
The DOT also expressed optimism that more jobs would be generated by the influx of foreign visitors. In 2022, the sector generated new employment of over 5.35 million jobs, accounting for 11 percent of overall employment in the country.
Frasco also called on other government agencies to help the DOT address tourism-related concerns on cleanliness and lack of decent diners.
The establishment of tourism rest areas (TRAs) partly helped in the resolution of complaints with the establishment of the first 10 TRAs, she said.
She said that in 2024, with the help of local government units (LGUs) and the Tourism Infrastructure and Enterprise Zone Authority (TIEZA), the DOT would construct 18 TRAs across Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao.
Frasco said the DOT also trained 124,116 tourism workers in the Filipino band of service excellence as of Dec. 5, 2023.
