Tourist arrivals in the Philippines rose moderately in 2008, despite global recession, mainly supported by the country’s new tourism markets and rigorous tourism campaigns.
The Department of Tourism (DOT) has revealed that the Philippines saw 1.5% YOY increase in tourist arrivals in 2008 in spite of less number of outbound tourists from recession-hit traditional markets such as the US and Japan, as reported by BusinessWorld.
In 2008, a total of 3.14 Million overseas tourists visited the Philippines. Accounting for 37% of the total tourist arrivals in 2008, Korea and the US remained the leading tourism markets for the Philippines with corresponding individual shares of 19% and 18%. The tourism sector contributes 6.2% to the country’s GDP. Among other tourism sources, Taiwanese market surged by 5.86% to 118,782 whereas Australia outpaced Taiwan and Hong Kong to become the fifth largest tourist posting nation for the Philippines. Similarly, arrivals from Russia increased 34%, France (19%), Finland (19%), Norway (16%), United Kingdom (10%) and Sweden (6%).
This growth in the Philippines tourism industry is attributed to the new markets such as Russia and China for which the country opened up a few years back. Weakening traditional tourism markets of America and Japan led the Philippines tourism board to diversify in new markets.
Besides, various new tourist-attracting festivals, DOT is promoting “glamping (glamorous camping) camps” in the villages of Cordillera Administrative Region for high-end tourists. Glamping is basically a European Tourism model.
The Philippines government is quite hopeful that its tourism industry will face the impact of global financial crisis in 2009 although the outbound tourism in Japan and South Korea is shrinking. According to DOT, the growth trend observed in 2008 would continue in the coming five years (2009-13).
According to a Research Analyst at RNCOS, “Robust domestic demand and stable international demand for Philippine tourist destinations will help the current expansions in tourism facilities and services to continue. The constant capacity expansion will lead the Philippines tourism sector to boom once its major markets recover from the recession blow.”
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