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Monday, April 25, 2005
Tourists from China up by 400%
By Jenny Molbog-Mendoza
TOURISM Secretary Joseph Ace Durano said tourist arrival of Chinese nationals in the country has increased by 400 percent during the first three months of this year, as compared to the same period last year.
Durano said in an interview Saturday that from 41,000 Chinese tourists who visited the Philippines last year, the figure has jumped to as high as 164,000 during the first quarter of this year.
Durano attributed the increase to the intensified promotional campaign being made by the Department of Tourism (DOT) in the said country.
"Instead of making English promotional materials for the China market, we created brochures and ads in Mandarin. I'm sorry but I can't pronounce the words in Chinese. And through that strategy, we have created a big number of Chinese visitors," he said.
To date, DOT is linking with the state-owned travel agencies in China in order to further capture a broader market.
"Since these travel agencies are government-owned, they can tell to its citizens where they must go for a vacation. If the government says that it will send 100,000 travelers to the Philippines, it will surely send that number," he said.
Durano vowed to strengthen more the ad campaigns of the agency not just in China but as well as in Korea and Japan, the two other tourism markets of the country.
For Bisaya stories from Davao. Click here. (April 25, 2005 issue)
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