{"id":777022638,"date":"2025-02-06T08:40:48","date_gmt":"2025-02-06T11:40:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/?p=777022638"},"modified":"2026-04-22T02:04:23","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T05:04:23","slug":"the-philippines-receives-626900-visitors-in-january","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/the-philippines-receives-626900-visitors-in-january","title":{"rendered":"The Philippines receives 626,900 visitors in January"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The figure was up 9.1 per cent in year-on-year terms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

The Philippines.- The Department of Tourism (DOT) <\/strong>has reported that the Philippines received 626,900 tourist arrivals in January. That\u2019s an increase of 9.1 per cent when compared to last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

South Korea remained the biggest source market, accounting for 25.9 per cent of arrivals (162,505). However, the figure was down 7 per cent when compared to last year. The United States was the second-biggest source market with 123,094 arrivals (20 per cent). The figure was up 18.7 per cent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There were 36,754 arrivals from Australia, up 22.1 per cent in year-on-year terms, while\u00a0Japan ranked fourth<\/strong>, with 35,658 arrivals (up 9.9 per cent). There were 35,265 arrivals from Canada, up 21.4 per cent, and 31,086 from China, down 7.2 per cent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2024, the Philippines\u00a0received 5.44 million tourist arrivals. That\u2019s an increase of 8.7 per cent. Some 91.4 per cent of arrivals were foreign tourists, including Filipinos residing overseas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Analysts at\u00a0Maybank Securities<\/strong> have forecast that tourism in the Philippines could\u00a0fully recover\u00a0<\/strong>to 2019 pre-pandemic levels in 2025. Analyst Ronalyn Joyce Lalimo<\/strong> said ongoing infrastructure improvements, including airport upgrades, could also help boost tourism from markets like South Korea, the United States, Japan, and Australia, which have strong historical and cultural connections with the Philippines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybank highlighted e-visa services for Chinese<\/a> and Indian visitors. Meanwhile, 43 projects underway under the Build Better More programme include five airport upgrades, including Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) and the New Manila International Airport. These will enhance capacity, with the new NAIA expected to handle 62 million passengers annually, up from 35 million.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, a new value-added tax (VAT) refund programme for foreign visitors, allowing refunds on purchases over PHP3,000 at approved stores, is likely to increase tourism spending.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

See also: <\/strong>The Philippines signs five-year tourism cooperation deal with Thailand<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The figure was up 9.1 per cent in year-on-year terms.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":176,"featured_media":16426,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"is_press_release":false,"is_interview":false,"is_opinion":false,"focusai_summary":"The Philippines reported a 9.1% year-on-year increase in January tourist arrivals, reaching 626,900 visitors, with strong growth from the US, Australia, and Canada offsetting declines from South Korea and China. Maybank Securities forecasts a full tourism recovery to pre-pandemic levels by 2025, driven by ongoing infrastructure improvements, including significant airport upgrades, and new initiatives like e-visa services and a VAT refund program for foreign visitors.","focusai_entities":"Department of Tourism (DOT), Maybank Securities, Ronalyn Joyce Lalimo, Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA), New Manila International Airport","focusai_location":"Philippines, South Korea, United States, Australia, Japan, Canada, China, Thailand","focusai_target_profile":"ceo_executive (0.85), operator_casino (0.88), investor_analyst (0.92), supplier_vendor (0.75), journalist_researcher (0.87)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"Impact on IR GGR?","query":"How will the projected tourism recovery and infrastructure upgrades specifically impact the GGR of integrated resorts in the Philippines, considering the shifts in source markets?"},{"label":"Investment Opportunities?","query":"What specific investment opportunities arise from the forecasted tourism growth and government infrastructure initiatives in the Philippine leisure and hospitality sector, particularly for capital markets stakeholders?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[157,16333],"tags":[23632],"class_list":["post-777022638","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business-news","category-south-east-asia-news","tag-integrated-resorts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777022638","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/176"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=777022638"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777022638\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":777022662,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777022638\/revisions\/777022662"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16426"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=777022638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=777022638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=777022638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}