CENTRAL Visayas welcomed close to five million tourists in the first 11 months of 2016, data from the Department of Tourism (DOT) 7 showed.
This translates to a 16.39 percent growth rate from 2015 tourist arrivals of 4.292 million compared to 4.996 million in 2016.
Cebu continues to account for the largest chunk of tourists, reaching 3.46 million from January to November 2016, followed by Bohol (820,000), Negros Oriental (632,000), and Siquijor (78,788).
Overall, domestic tourists reached 2.9 million while there were two million foreign tourists who visited Central Visayas during the period.
While visitors from Korea consistently make up the majority of foreign tourists to the region, the highest growth was from China, seeing a 72.89 percent increase in arrivals. Chinese tourists rank third among foreign visitors to Central Visayas, making up at 12.01 percent share.
Koreans, who make up 43.29 percent of the region’s foreign visitors, grew 11.84 percent.
Declines
The region, however, saw a decline of 12.10 percent from Canadian tourists, who are ranked 10th among foreign arrivals. Visitors from Germany and the United Kingdom also declined.
Tourists from Southeast Asia grew slightly by 1.91 percent, from 46,957 in 2016 to 46,077 in 2015. The two biggest ASEAN groups that visited the region were from Singapore and Thailand.
For the whole year of 2016, DOT has a target of 5.8 million tourists. The actual figures for the entire 2016 is yet to be released, said DOT 7 Director Catalino Chan III.
This year, the Philippines targets 6.5 million foreign tourists and another 73.3 million domestic travelers.
For returning overseas Filipinos, the DOT 7 saw a decline of 32.16 percent. From 13,491 returning Filipinos in 2015, only 9,152 visited the region last year.
Regions
Travelers from the Middle East saw a 13.33 percent rise, with most of them coming from Saudi Arabia.
Visitors from South America grew 44.91 percent, with most of the tourists coming from Brazil.
The department saw an increase of 5.62 percent in arrivals from Western Europe, a slight decline of 0.45 percent from Northern Europe, A 34.25 percent rise from Southern Europe and a decline of 2.01 percent from Eastern Europe.
There was a 4.46 percent rise in visitors from Africa.