Taiwan visitors log biggest increase

THE biggest growth in foreign tourist arrivals in Central Visyas last year came from Taiwanese visitors, figures from the Department of Tourism 7 show.

Taiwanese visitors grew 4.76 percent to 28,923 from 19,980 in 2011, ranking sixth among the top foreign visitors to the region.

Still, the biggest share of foreign arrivals come from Korea, growing 12.85 percent from 398,649 in 2011 to 449,857 in 2012. Koreans made up 44.45 percent of all foreign visitors to Central Visayas.

Foreign arrivals reached 1.012 million last year, up 13.84 percent from the 894,521 who visited the region in 2011. Following Koreans were Japanese, Americans, Chinese, Australians, Germans, citizens of the United Kingdom, French and Canadians. Of these visitors, only Chinese visitors saw a drop of 3.69 percent. Chinese visitors made up 5.32 percent of foreign visitors.

Japanese arrivals rose 23.01 percent while American arrivals rose 12.86 percent.

Visitors from Australia climbed 14.68 percent. Germany posted an 8.11 percent increase. From the United Kingdom, a growth of 3.72 percent was recorded while a 16.48 percent rise in French visitors was noted. A small 0.02 percent increase in Canadian visitors rounded up the top 10 markets in Central Visayas.

As for domestic visitors, Central Visayas posted 11.96 percent growth from 1.56 million in 2011 to 1.75 million last year.

In Cebu, 997,303 non-Philippine residents visited the province while 1.22 million Philippine residents came, bringing to 2.23 million the number of tourists who visited Cebu in 2012.

Visitors to Bohol reached 356,370, with 105,400 non-Philippine residents and 259,715 Philippine residents. In Negros Oriental, they registered 307,950 arrivals, 43,648 of which were non-Philippine residents. Siquijor, for its part, registered 33,116 visitors, with 15,226 of them non-Philippine residents.

Overseas Filipinos, who are Philippine passport holders permanently residing abroad, made up 0.55 percent of the total arrivals, dropping 7.43 percent from 17,415 in 2011 to 16,121 last year.