The Department of Tourism (DOT) is pleased to announce that visitor arrivals for the first semester of 2018 reached an all-time high of 3,706,721.
According to the data gathered by the DOT’s Statistics, Economic Analysis and Information Management Division (SEAIMD), foreign arrivals from January to June of 2018 registered a double digit growth of 10.40 percent against the 3,357,591 arrivals last year.
This developed after arrivals for June 2018 tallied at 528,747 posting an 11.35 percent increase, compared to the 474,854 arrivals of the same month last year.
Tourism Secretary Bernadette Romulo-Puyat stressed that DOT’s partnership with the private sector and intensified convergence with relevant government agencies served as impetus in sustaining the upward trajectory of foreign arrivals.
“The DOT’s continuous marketing promotions, aggressive actions to create new air routes and develop new tourism products, travel facilitation, and confidence in tourism investments drummed up the industry and resulted to this stellar performance. But I would like to emphasize that this will not be possible without the consolidated efforts of all stakeholders,” enthused Puyat.
The Tourism Chief is optimistic that the first six months of 2018 is a clear manifestation that the target of 7.4 million tourist arrivals by the end of year is achievable.
“We are actually on track. We are halfway the year and we are exactly halfway of our National Tourism Development Plan (NTDP) target arrivals.”
