January tourist arrivals reach record high

MANILA, Philippines – For the first time, the Philippines surpassed the 400,000 mark for visitor arrivals in the country in a month.  

The Tourism Department proudly announced the “record breaking high of 411,064 visitor arrivals  in January”

This represented a 17.5% increase from the 349,713 visitors in January 2011.

“We are happy to set a new all-time high for the industry,” Tourism Secretary Ramon R. Jimenez, Jr. in a statement on Thursday, March 22.  

“We expect that these numbers will continue to steadily increase with the introduction of our new brand campaign this year and the convergence initiatives and efforts that the DOT has been undertaking with other government agencies and the private sector,” he added.

The number of Chinese tourists grew a whopping 173.8% month-on-month,  edging out the Japanese on the 3rd top tourist market.

This was attributed to the heavy influx of Chinese tourists for the Chinese New Year which fell on the third week of January this 2012.

Overseas Filipinos, or Filipinos permanently residing abroad contributed, 15,531 arrivals, registering 3.8% to the total volume.

The Aquino government hopes to meet its 4.6 million target for tourist arrivals this 2012 as the tourism department implements a full roll out of its “It’s More Fun in the Philippines” campaign. – Rappler.com