The Department of Tourism (DOT) is optimistic the Philippines will exceed its arrival goals for 2024.
“With this upward trajectory of the performance of Philippine tourism under the Marcos administration, what we anticipate is that in the same way that we were able to exceed our targets as far as visitor receipts are concerned for 2023 that we would be able to achieve the same feat for 2024,” DOT Secretary Christina Garcia Frasco said at the 2024 Post-State of the Nation Discussions in Pasay City.
The Philippines received more than 5.45 million international visitors in 2023, breaching its 4.8 million arrivals target.
This year, the country has a baseline target of 7.7 million international visitor arrivals.
To fully ease the convenience of coming into the Philippines, Frasco said President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. directed the DOT to fully implement the e-visa program, hoping that it will be implemented by the Department of Foreign Affairs as soon as possible.
The secretary also raised the need to improve the passenger experience at airports to ensure seamless tourist arrivals in the country.
Last year, the tourism sector contributed P3.36 trillion to the economy in terms of international and domestic visitor receipts, a surge by 75.3 percent from P1.92 trillion in 2022.
“We’ve also seen, according to the Philippines Statistics Authority, the highest ever recorded growth rate in terms of tourism direct gross value added to the gross domestic product. And so the contribution of tourism now to the GDP stands at 8.6 percent,” said Frasco.
“These numbers have translated to that which matters most in everything that we do in the Department of Tourism and in our President’s very clear vision for tourism, that is to provide jobs to our fellow Filipinos,” she pointed out.IMT
