Out of the 2.8 million tourists who came to the Philippines in 2006, Koreans topped the list with a recorded tourist arrival of 572,133. Korea displaced the United States (with 567,355 tourist arrivals) as the largest source of foreign tourists. Other tourist markets in the top 5 are Japan (421,808), China (133,585) and Taiwan (114,955). Based on statistics from the Department of Tourism (DOT), tourist arrivals from Korea rose by 16.9% from 2005 to 2006 while those from the US increased by only 7.4%. China posted the fastest increase in tourist arrivals of 24.3% among the top 10 tourist markets.

Table 1.  Top Ten Highest Visitor Arrival by Country of Residence: 2005 and 2006

Tourist arrivals from Korea increased almost 10 times from 1985 to 2006. It is noted that after a decline of 51.8% in 1998, tourist arrivals from Korea has increased by almost six times. Tourists from China continue to exhibit an increasing trend with remarkable growths in the last two years: 171.5% in 2005 and 24.3% in 2006.

Figure 1. Percent Share of the Top Ten Visitor Arrivals by Country of Residence: 2006

Meanwhile, Korea’s share to total tourist arrivals in 2006 was 20.1%, one percentage point higher than the U.S. with 20.0%. They are followed by Japan (14.8%), China (4.7%) and Taiwan (4.0%).  Among the top 5 tourist markets, U.S., Japan and Taiwan’s share have decreased since 2004.

Source of basic data: Department of Tourism