Philippines terms 2005 as successful year for tourism

Philippines is expecting to cross 2.6 million-figure for total foreign tourist arrivals in 2005 and is projecting to lure around three million foreign tourists next year with the government now working on new markets, including Russia and India. The nation had attracted 2.3 million foreign tourists in 2004.

“We are indeed close to achieving our goal for 2005. Given the latest facts on tourism arrivals, there is definitely no doubt that we will go beyond our 2.6 million target, especially with the peak seasons November and December still unaccounted for,” Tourism Secretary Joseph Ace Durano said. The authorities based their forecast on an actual 10-month figure of 2.114 million visitor arrivals this year, representing a 13.6 percent increase over 1.861 million arrivals a year ago.
 
Durano told media that the government’s campaign to lure tourists has been so successful that the tourism industry is now having a problem providing adequate accommodations. Durano said the country’s hotel capacity is now a limiting factor for the government programs to lure millions of foreign tourists to visit the different foreign destinations here. “We can’t create demand that is more than we can accommodate,” Durano reportedly said while noting that poor or inadequate accommodations create negative impressions for tourists. “We have to improve our hotel capacity if we want to encourage more than three million foreign travelers to visit our country,” he said.
 
Durano told media that tourist arrivals in October rose 17.7 percent to 206,792 from 175,644 in the same month last year. Media reported that top sources of foreign visitors in October were Korea, the United States, Japan and China. Visitors from Korea increased by 42.8 percent to 42,044 in October 2005 from 29,445 a year earlier. Arrivals from the US moved up from 36,232 to 39,781 while arrivals from Japan grew to 32,748 from 28,646. The Philippines’ fastest-growing market remains China, with arrivals rising 189 percent to 10,644 from 3,684.
 
“These developments are the results of our market specific sub-campaigns that we have implemented in these priority markets,” Durano said.

By Satish G. l eTN Asia

December 28, 2005   Posted in: Philippines