Philippines tourism earnings up 8.24% at PHP186.89-B from January-October
By Azer N. Parrocha

MANILA, Dec. 22 (PNA) -- Tourists visiting the Philippines for the first 10 months of this year generated PHP186.89 billion in visitor receipts, an 8.24 percent increase from the PHP172.66 billion acquired in the same period last year, the Department of Tourism (DOT) reported Tuesday.

DOT Undersecretary Benito Bengzon Jr. told reporters in an interview that the target visitor for receipts by the end of this year is approximately PHP270 billion (USD6-6.5 billion).

“People now really have to start looking at a different perspective,” Bengzon said referring to how tourism performance indicators did not rely on tourist arrivals or headcount alone but also on receipts and job generation.

“The focus is not so much in headcount,” he added, noting that it was more important to sustain the tourism brand.

In October, receipts amounted to PHP18.13 billion which is 21.52 percent higher than the PHP14.92 billion earnings recorded in the previous year’s receipts.

From the July to October, receipts acquired double-digit gain, with September posting the highest growth. January recorded the biggest receipts of PHP22.48 billion.

In October alone, the average daily expenditure for foreign tourists was estimated at PHP5,200.30 while average length of stay for the same month registered at 9.66 nights.

DOT also said that average per capita expenditure of visitors for the month in review was PHP50,234.92.

The top visitor generating market is still South Korea with PHP4.57 billion, followed by US with PHP3.99 billion and Canada with PHP1.05 billion. Canada overtook Japan, which was third receipt generator the month before.

Rounding up the top five visitor generating markets are Japan, now fourth receipt generator with PHP0.97 billion, followed by Australia with PHP0.95 billion.

Among the top 12 markets of the country, visitors from Canada registered the highest per capita expenditure for the month of October with PHP94,792.31 while visitors from Indonesia recorded the second biggest per capita spending of PHP79,434.77.

Other top markets with high per capita spending include India with PHP73,123.55, Germany with PHP69,528.29 and the United States with PHP67,474.47.

Bengzon said that the increase in visitor receipts is driven by the successful launch of its campaign Visit the Philippines Year 2015 (VPY 2015), which acquired 4.39-million foreign visitors for the first ten months of this year.

This data, the department said, higher by 11.13 percent than the 3.95-million visitors recorded in the same period in 2014 with top markets South Korea, USA, Japan, China, Australia, Singapore, Taiwan, Malaysia, UK and Canada.

Meanwhile, DOT said that it is still eyeing between 5.2 to 5.3 million tourists by yearend. (PNA)