Philippine tourism boast of increase in international visitors
It has been a friendly year on the field of tourism in the Philippines as the previous year was marked as an all time high year for raking in plenty of tourists into our shore. Department of Tourism sure have a reason for an ear to ear grin as they now boasts of surpassing the records set by previous years. It was a job well done for their department despite of the controversy that had plagued them in terms of their shortfalls in advertising the tourist spots in our country.
Tourism industry hit high all because of the massive influx of wealthy South Koreans and Chinese who preferred to spend their vacation in some famous attraction spots in our country. The Manila hostage-taking which left 8 Hong Kong nationals dead last August had not marred the appeal of the industry to lull visitors to our country. They still continue to flock in. The number of tourists arriving in the Philippines rose 16.68% over the previous year, with East Asians, led by South Koreans, accounting for nearly half the total, the tourism ministry said in a statement. Tourists mean business to most of the Filipinos who had been relying on the hospitality industry. The main factor for such visitor increase was pinpointed on the steady rise of our growing economy. Tourism industry has met the expectations and even went beyond the set quota. All in all, 3.3 million is the annual target of tourists who would be visiting the country. This is expected by the Aquino administration who seeks to improve tourism as stated in his platform. He promised to boost tourist arrivals to 6 million by the time he would be stepping out of his office in 2016. It was reassuring to note that the incidents are all going accordingly as the president had planned.
Another factor that could have contributed to a growing number of tourists is the declining international airlines fare who were liberalized within the 10-nation economic bloc in November last year. Nevertheless, the president is staunch in doing possible ways so our tourism industry could be at par with those of the progressive countries. Hopefully, the sun will shine all throughout the country so we could help reach the goal of welcoming tourists into our home.
