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Friday, September 15, 2006
Summit to bring more Asean visitors to Cebu
Cebu's hosting of two Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) events this year can help stimulate the interest of citizens of Asean member-countries in the province’s tourism potentials.
Department of Tourism (DOT) 7 Director Patria Aurora Roa said tourist traffic from Asean has never been big compared with the country’s traditional markets, such as Japan, South Korea and the United States.
“(But) yes, the Asean events will give us better figures from the Asean,” she told Sun.Star Cebu.
DOT’s report on visitor arrivals in Cebu from January to July this year and in 2005 revealed that arrivals from the Asean make up only about two percent of Cebu’s total visitors.
Host
Asean groups Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam and the Philippines.
Cebu is the host of this year’s Asean Leaders’ Summit, which will be held in December. The Asean Inter-Parliamentary Organization is also meeting at the Marco Polo Plaza Hotel.
According to the DOT report, Cebu had 5,484 visitors from the Asean for the first seven months of the year.
The number is an improvement to the 5,033 visitors in the same period last year.
The bulk of Cebu’s foreign visitors came from East Asia accounting for about 66.25 percent of the pro-vince’s total arrivals for the same period.
Top market
About 87,730 of the 172,502 East Asians came from Korea, Cebu’s top market while 67,529 tourists flew in from Japan.
The rest of the tourists are from Taiwan, Hong Kong and China.
The number of Korean visitors in Cebu for the said period increased 20.12 percent from the same period last year.
Koreans have been Cebu’s top tourist market since Japan forbade, through a travel advisory, its citizens to travel to the Philippines in 2001.
But tourism stakeholders in Cebu have continued to exert efforts to win back the confidence of the Japanese, saying the province’s tourism industry earns more from this market than from Koreans, who prefer to do business with their fellowmen.
Increase
Visitors from the Americas, which include Canada and the United States, increased 26.12 percent to 34,862 from 27,643 in the same period last year.
Tourists from Europe increased 28.59 percent to 26,027 from 20,240 last year.
Tourists from Germany topped the list accounting for about 2.21 percent or 5,763 visitors followed by those from the United Kingdom with 5,423.
Cebu also had 3,067 visitors from Switzerland and about 1,000 each from France, Italy, Netherlands, Norway and Sweden.
Cebu’s total number of foreign visitors increased 15.84 percent to 260,377.
Total domestic travelers also increased 7.21 percent to 449,778 during the period. (JBN)
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (September 15, 2006 issue)
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