Central Visayas welcomed 4.5 million visitors

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By Katlene O. Cacho

THE Department of Tourism (DOT) 7 announced yesterday that Central Visayas has exceeded its tourism target for 2015.

The region welcomed 4.5 million arrivals last year, up by 10.46 percent, partial records of the DOT showed.

Domestic arrivals contributed 2.6 million or a growth of 7.02 percent while foreign arrivals grew by 15.65 percent or 1.9 million. The agency’s arrival target for 2015 is pegged at 4.4 million.

Cebu logged a total of 3.3 million tourists last year while Bohol recorded 448,147 arrivals. Tourist arrivals in Negros stood at 625,295 while some 61,217 tourists visited Siquijor in 2015.

DOT 7 Director Rowena Montecillo, in an interview yesterday, said the increased flights to Japan has greatly contributed to the increase in foreign arrivals last year as well as the several big-ticket meetings, incentives, conventions and exhibitions (Mice) activities last year, including the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeintgs where Cebu played as the host-city for several ministerial meetings.

“The APEC-related events somehow attributed to the growth to our arrivals. We are hoping to see more positive effects of APEC in the future as foreign delegates come here with their families for leisure,” she said.

Japan’s increased flights from Cebu commenced on the last quarter of 2015 boosting arrivals of the Japanese market. This second top source market grew by 25.91 percent or 312,491 arrivals last year.

China, however, posted the highest growth last year. This market grew by 80.84 percent or 117,994 arrivals from 65,211 in 2014, making them the region’s fourth tourist market.

Montecillo said, most of these Chinese tourists went to Negros Oriental for some eco-tourism activities together with their families. She said Negros is becoming the next stop for Chinese tourists because it is more laid back.

“This is an indication that tourism is starting to spread out in other provinces of the region. We are happy that they are exploring other tourism destinations outside of Cebu but still within the region,” she said.

Korea remains the region’s top source market, growing at 18.61 percent. It generated 712,743 arrivals in 2015, from 600,904 arrivals the previous year.

Arrivals from the United States, the third top tourist source market, grew by 13.58 percent or 157,910 arrivals while Australia logged 56,356 arrivals up by 5.94 percent.

Other markets also posted positive growths except for the United Kingdom, whose growth declined by 9.42 percent from 39,614 in 2014 arrivals to 35,882 last year.

Arrivals from Germany went up by 11.97 percent with 36,780 arrivals; Canada also grew by 9.30 percent with 33,227 arrivals; France at 23.50 percent with 30,371 arrivals; and Taiwan at 56.07 percent with 26,196 arrivals.

The Philippines closed 2015 with a total of 5,360,682 visitors. It posted a 10.91 percent growth from the 4,833,368 visitors in 2014.

“The strong performance of the industry could be attributed to the intensified marketing campaigns that the country mounted during the year, the influx of visitors during the Christmas holidays, as well as, the international media exposure of the country as major international events were successfully held in the Philippines such as the visit of Pope Francis, APEC 2015 meetings and tourism events such as Madrid Fusion Manila which help boost arrivals to the country,” the DOT said in its website.

Korea continued to be the biggest visitor-generating market last year with 1.34 million visitors, up by 13.97 percent followed by US which supplied the second biggest influx of tourist arrivals with 779,217 visitors; Japan with 495,662 visitors; China with 490,841 visitors; and Australia with 241,187 arrivals.

The country, likewise, generated total tourism receipts amounting to P227.62 billion last year up by 5.92 percent from the previous earnings of P214.88 billion.