Tourists on a Boracay beach (INQUIRER FILE PHOTO)
ILOILO CITY, Iloilo, Philippines — The number of tourists who visited Boracay Island has reached over a million since the start of 2023, buoying hope that visitors will exceed the 1.8 million target of Malay town in Aklan province, which has jurisdiction over the country’s prime leisure destination.
“We hit the 1 million mark and we are not expecting that much. If this will be the trend, we will exceed 2 million at the end of the year,” Malay Mayor Frolibar Bautista said in an interview on the sidelines of the Central Philippines Tourism Expo held in Iloilo City on June 18.
Data from the Malay local government showed that from January to June 17 this year, Boracay registered 1,040,847 tourists, consisting of 199,098 foreign visitors, 816,426 local tourists, and 25,323 overseas Filipino workers.
The number surpassed the 850,047 guests who visited the island during the same period last year, as the island relaxed its COVID-19-related travel restrictions and began recovering from the economic slump caused by the pandemic.
Bautista said the increase in Boracay’s tourist arrivals could be attributed to their hosting of meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibits (MICE), adding that he expected the number to rise further once visitors from South Korea and China would start arriving next month.
The local government has not imposed new protocols for visitors and wearing face masks remained optional, Bautista added.
Last year, the Department of Tourism in Western Visayas unveiled three new “tourism circuits” that they intended to promote, which were different from the usual beach and MICE products that were being promoted in previous years.
These were the biking tour, which was divided into sightseeing and endurance clusters targeted for families and adventure lovers; the food crawl, which involved deconstructed full-course meals from participating restaurants; and the wellness workstation, which offered a relaxing retreat to visitors.