East Asians still top visitors

EAST ASIA remains the Philippines’ biggest tourist market, with nearly half of visitors from January to April coming from the region.

Department of Tourism undersecretary and spokesperson Benito Bengzon Jr. attributed the high rate of arrivals from East Asia to the DOT’s aggressive promotion of Philippine destinations.

East Asian countries supplied 1,020,434, or 49.20 percent of the 2,073,851 total tourist visitors to the Philippines from January to April, accounting for 14.25-percent growth in foreign arrivals from the same period last year.

According to the DOT, Korea remained the top tourist market, accounting for over 480,000 arrivals, or 23.22 percent of total visitors, in the first four months of the year.

The DOT also noted more arrivals from other East Asian countries like China, whose tourists numbered 238,523, an increase of 88.86 percent from last year’s 126,293, as well as Taiwan, with 71,656 tourists.

Korea, China and Taiwan are included in the DOT’s top 10 visitor-generating markets.

Other countries on the list were the United States, Japan, Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, Singapore and Malaysia.

The DOT noted substantial growth from January to April in the number of tourists from France, Germany, Sweden and India. Jeannette I. Andrade