Philippine Tourism

There are three (3) government –run agencies that oversee the tourism development in the Philippines. The Department of Tourism (DOT) is the primary government agency charged with the responsibility of encouraging, promoting, and developing to both the private and public sector in the Philippines. The current Secretary of Tourism is Sec. Ace Durano. Second is the Philippine Convention and Visitor’s Corporation which promotes the Philippines as a venue for international meetings and conventions. Lastly, there is a corporate entity attached to the DOT called the Philippine Tourism Authority (PTA). It plays a unique role in the promotion and development of the country’s tourism industry by serving as a bridge for the private sector to harness the country’s potential tourism resources in strategic areas of the country in order to strengthen and sustain the Philippine Tourism Industry.

Efforts to revive the once lagging Tourism industry in the Philippines had begun to pay off thanks largely to an aggressive marketing campaign to make the Philippines a more visible player in world trade expositions and fairs abroad. In 1992, only about 1.2 million tourists visited the Philippines. Compare that to the year 2000 when the Philippines’ tourist arrivals totaled 2.2 million. In 2003 it amounted to 2, 838,000 visitors, growing by almost 29%.

According to the latest available data provided by the DOT, tourist arrivals from January to June 2008 went up by 6.9 percent to hit 1,633,887 posting a 7% growth in tourist arrivals for the first semester of 2008 alone. Partial data on tourist spending for the first six months of 2008 aggregated to US$ 1.87 billion with Koreans and Americans providing the biggest share of total foreign exchange earnings.

China remains to be a fast growing market with 20 percent rise in inbound traffic. The launch of the new charter flight from Shanghai to Kalibo is envisioned to stimulate greater travel movement from China to the Philippines. The DOT continues to build strong relationships with the travel trade in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, as part of the objective of creating a bigger demand among the Chinese outbound market. Access is also being fast-tracked with the resumption of Shanghai - Cebu charter flights and the launch of Shanghai – Kalibo connections in the second half of the year.

Taiwan posted an impressive double-digit gain for an aggregate volume of 60,195, to become the fourth leading source of arrivals. The Mandarin Air charter flights from Kaohsiung to Cebu and from Taipei to Kalibo, which were initiated by the DOT, had greatly improved tourist accessibility to Mactan, Bohol, and Boracay Island

The arrival volume recorded in the first half of 2008 is almost 48 percent of the total growth target set by the DOT for the year. For the remainder of the year, the DOT has promised to launch different, creative ways in order to stimulate tourist spending and longer stay, thereby, increasing the economic contribution of tourism to the Philippine economy.