Thursday, October 07, 2004
RP tourist arrivals up 29% in first eight months
TOURIST arrivals in the Philippines rose 29.2 percent from a year earlier to 1.453 million in the eight months to August, the government said.
August arrivals rose 15.5 percent to 179,604, the AFP news reported.
The tourism department is targeting full-year arrivals to reach 2.5 million, up from 1.907 million in 2003, it said.
The figures pale against the performance of the country’s neighbors.
Last Tuesday, former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, in a speech at the 30th Philippine Business Conference at the Manila Hotel, said Malaysia was targeting 25 million tourists yearly.
He said Malaysia was already getting 14-15 million tourists annually.
Hong Kong received 2.1 million visitors in the month of August alone, as the city continues to attract more travelers from China. For the eight months to August, tourist arrivals totaled over 14 million.
Thailand is targeting 12 million tourists this year.
The sadder thing is that in 2000, Vietnam, a “war-ravaged country with land mines,” already overtook the Philippines with its 2.14 million tourists compared to the Philippines’ 1.996 million that year, then tourism secretary Richard Gordon said.
The Philippines’ best performance was in 1997, with visitor arrivals of 2.2 million tourists.
Tiny Singapore received seven million tourists in 2000, Gordon said.
Early this year, however, then Philippine Airlines president and chief operating officer Avelino Zapanta said the millions of passengers crossing between Malaysia and Singapore were not all tourists. “They (Malaysia and Singapore) used to be one country, so their relatives are on the other side,” he said. (CTL)
(October 7, 2004 issue)
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