AS of the first quarter of 2018, tourist arrivals in Davao City had increased by 18 percent to 543,279 from 459,104 tourist arrivals during same duration last year.

“We attribute this to the various Meetings, Incentives, Conferences, Exhibitions (MICE) events being held in our city as well of course as our push for Sports Tourism. March saw us celebrating the 81st Araw ng Dabaw and the IronMan,” City Tourism Operations Office (CTOO) head Generose told SunStar Davao.

For March 2018 alone, because of the festival and IronMan Triathlon, Tecson said the city had a recorded tourist arrival of 198,427.

For the 2nd quarter of 2018, on the other hand, Tecson said they are targeting another 500,000 tourist arrivals as well. Last year, for the first time, the tourist arrivals in Davao City reached the 2 million mark with exactly 2,009,879. This is despite of Martial Law being declared for the entire island-region in 2017 until the present.

As the tourist arrivals in the city is constantly making a 5 to 7 percent increase since 2015, Tecson said they are aiming for a 7-percent increase this 2018.