Inbound visitors in Philippines down by 82.05% in 2020; Korea still top visitor market —DOT

The tourist arrivals in the Philippines fell by 82.05% in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Department of Tourism (DOT) said Monday.

In an online forum on 2020 Tourism Statistics, Warner Andrada, chief of DOT Office of Tourism Development Planning, said visitor arrivals, which include foreign visitors and overseas Filipinos, plummeted from 8,260,913  in 2019 to 1,482,535 in 2020.

This data, according to Andrada, was sourced from the arrival and departure cards of the Bureau of Immigration.

For monthly visitor arrivals in 2020, the month of April recorded the lowest number of incoming tourists with 948. Meanwhile, January reported the highest number of tourist arrivals with 796,164.

Receipts generated by inbound tourism also decreased by 82.94% from P482.15 billion in 2019 to P82.24 billion in 2020.

Domestic trips, likewise, plunged by 77.90% from 109,752,403 in 2019 to 24,250,000 in 2020.

Meanwhile, the highest number of tourists in DOT accommodation establishments such as hotels and resorts were in Central Visayas with 1,318,727 visitors. This was followed by Metro Manila with 1,689,328 visitors and Davao Region with 1,391,360.

The 8.26 million tourists in 2019 exceeded the target of 8.2 million.

Korea still top visitor market

Korea remained the top country for visitor arrivals in the Philippines with 338,877 tourists.

This number is lower from 1.98 million arrivals of Korean tourists in the Philippines which was recorded in 2019.

United States landed the second spot, with 211,816 arrivals in 2020, followed by China with 170,432 visitors.

In 2019, China emerged as second top source market of Philippine tourism with 170,432 visitors while US was third with 1.06 million arrivals.

Here are the top source of Philippine tourism market in 2020:

•     Korea - 338,877
•     USA - 211,816
•     China 170,432
•     Japan - 136,664
•     Australia - 55,330
•     Canada- 55,273
•     Taiwan - 48,644
•     UK - 39,980
•     India - 29,014
•     Germany - 25,893
•     France - 24,530
•     Malaysia - 23,359

—AOL, GMA News