Some 2.47 million foreign travelers visited the Philippines in the first six months of 2023, Quezon City 4th District Rep. Marvin Rillo, vice chairperson of the House committee on tourism, said Friday.
“The number of foreign tourists that arrived in the Philippines between January and June 2023 already exceeded the 2,025,413 that entered the country in the whole 12 months of 2022,” Rillo said in a statement.
“There’s no question that our tourism sector is on the road to a strong recovery, and that this upturn is helping to drive jobs creation,” Rillo said.
Data from the Department of Tourism showed that the country registered total arrivals of 2.7 million in the six-month period, including 231,283 among overseas Filipinos and 2.47 million foreign tourists.
The increase in arrivals brought back jobs to the tourism, travel and allied sectors.
Rillo said that based on employment figures released by the Philippine Statistics Authority earlier this month, the “accommodation and food service activities” gained 398,000 jobs as of May 2023 from a year ago.
Rillo, citing DOT figures, said the top sources of foreign arrivals in the first semester were South Korea with 673,841; the United States, 516,318; Australia; Japan, 128,081; Canada, 124,510; China, 114,663; the United Kingdom, 87,376; Taiwan, 86,134; Malaysia, 52,604; and Singapore, 49,623.
Rillo, meanwhile, welcomed France’s plan to launch direct flights from Paris to Manila, saying it would encourage a greater number of French nationals to visit the Philippines.
A total of 36,054 French nationals arrived in the Philippines in the first semester.
The French ambassador to Philippines, Michèle Boccoz, earlier this week said her government was working on opening direct flights between Manila and Paris.