Date:
April 2003
Visitor Arrivals Up by 2.6 Percent in First Quarter
Final
figures from the Department of Tourism show
that visitor arrivals grew by 2.6 percent
to 495,390 in the first quarter of the year
from 483,033 a year earlier. However, foreign
tourist arrivals slowed by nearly 10 percent
YoY in March and appear to have declined further
in April.
The good news is that local tourism is booming.
Filipinos have increased their domestic tour
activity as they avoid international trips
for fear of contracting SARS.
In
March, foreign tourist arrivals fell to 157,036
from 174,366 a year ago, ending a 10-month
surge in arrivals on the back of an intensified
government endorsement. Analysts blamed the
March depression to the outbreak of war in
Iraq, the bombings in Mindanao, and the spread
of SARS in East Asia. This was manifested
by the huge drop in tourist arrivals from
the US and Hong Kong. Because of the war between
a US-led coalition and Iraq, the number of
tourists from the US plunged 23 percent to
31,236 in March this year from 40,485 a year
earlier. Because of the SARS scare in East
Asia, the volume of tourists from Hong Kong
dropped by almost 39 percent to 9,806 in March.
For
the first quarter period, the number of travelers
from the US went down by 3.8 percent to 98,248
from 102,090 a year earlier while the number
of tourists from Hong Kong fell 25 percent
to 33,989 from 45,345.
On
the other hand, visitor arrivals from Japan
improved by 6.2 percent to 87,885 in the first
quarter of the year from 82,737 a year earlier
while arrivals from South Korea increased
by 22.2 percent to 83,703 from 68,497.
Despite
the continuous robust local tourism, international
tourist arrivals are not expected to recover
in April because of the first SARS case in
the country, which has been flown from Canada.
In 2002, visitor arrivals to the country went
up by 7.6 percent to 1,932,677 from 1,796,893
in 2001.
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