Published on : Tuesday, May 7, 2019
In a meeting on the sidelines of 52nd Asian Development Bank (ADB) Annual Meeting in this Pacific island nation, Bernadette Romulo Puyat, the Tourism Secretary explained that there was a 7.59 percent rise in tourist arrivals in the January to March 2019.
Romulo Puyat explained on the basis of data from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), this translated to as much as 2.2 million tourist arrivals in the initial quarter, higher than the 2.05 million posted in the first quarter of 2018.
“Well, there are a lot of factors. We have a lot of direct flights, Cebupac, PAL, AirAsia, [they] now have more direct flights. In fact, when we met with both airlines, actually, even with AirAsia, they told us they have new routes in Japan, in Australia. [These] direct flights really help [increase tourist arrivals],” Romulo Puyat said.
In March of this year, Romulo Puyat said tourist arrivals increased 11.13 percent to 714,309 visitors in comparison to 642,757 arrivals during the same time last year.
In 2018, Romulo Puyat said had the Boracay closure not happened during peak summer months, the country would have exceeded its target of 7.4 million tourist arrivals.
Last year, Romulo Puyat said there were approximately 7.1 million local and international tourists who visited various parts of the country. She stated that this was in spite of the 6-month Boracay closure which could have yielded 500,000 or more tourists.
“We were celebrating because I really didn’t expect, I thought it would be almost the same to last year [because of Boracay]. So that’s why we’re celebrating. From 6.6 [million last year] to 7.1 [million]. [There were] 6.6 [million tourists in] 2017 (then we had) 7.1 million for 2018 and mind you, it [Boracay] was closed April 26, we lost May, [the height of] summer,” Romulo Puyat said.
Tags: Philippine