{"id":777023814,"date":"2025-03-07T09:46:52","date_gmt":"2025-03-07T12:46:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/?p=777023814"},"modified":"2026-04-22T01:05:29","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T04:05:29","slug":"the-philippines-receives-1-17m-visitors-in-first-two-months-of-the-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/the-philippines-receives-1-17m-visitors-in-first-two-months-of-the-year","title":{"rendered":"The Philippines receives 1.17m visitors in first two months of the year"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The figure was up 0.96 per cent in year-on-year terms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<p>The Philippines.- The\u00a0<strong>Department of Tourism (DOT)\u00a0<\/strong>has reported that the Philippines\u00a0received 1,167,908 visitors in the first two months of the year. That\u2019s an increase of 0.96 per cent when compared to the same period last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>South Korea remained the biggest source market, accounting for 25.31 per cent of arrivals (295,611). However, the figure was down 10.6 per cent when compared to last year. The United States was the second-biggest source market with 229,836 arrivals (17.7 per cent), up 11.6 per cent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Japan ranked third, providing 83,208 arrivals or 6.4 per cent of all visitors. The figure was up 11.6 per cent year-on-year. There were 65,145 arrivals from Canada, 61,564 from Australia, 53,545 from China, 41,388 from Taiwan, 34,451 from the United Kingdom, 29,352 from Singapore and 21,252 from France.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Philippine tourism revenue Hits US$1.1bn in January<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>The DOT reported over PHP65bn (US$1bn) in tourism revenues in January. That&#8217;s an increase of 78.81 per cent in year-on-year terms. The figure surpasses pre-Covid-19 levels by 136.1 per cent in US dollars and 151.46 per cent in Philippine pesos.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Tourism secretary<strong> Christina Garcia-Frasco<\/strong> said, &#8220;The recovery of Philippine tourism from the period of the pandemic in terms of revenues translates to thousands of jobs created for Filipinos, providing livelihood opportunities for many, especially in our rural and underserved areas.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"900\" height=\"600\" src=\"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2025\/03\/Christina-Garcia-Frasco-900x600.jpg\" alt=\"Christina Garcia-Frasco, tourism secretary.\" class=\"wp-image-777023815\" srcset=\"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2025\/03\/Christina-Garcia-Frasco-900x600.jpg 900w, https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2025\/03\/Christina-Garcia-Frasco-600x400.jpg 600w, https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2025\/03\/Christina-Garcia-Frasco-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2025\/03\/Christina-Garcia-Frasco.jpg 1600w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p>In 2024, the Philippines&nbsp;received 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<p>Analysts at\u00a0<strong>Maybank Securities<\/strong>\u00a0have forecast that tourism in the Philippines could\u00a0<strong>fully recover\u00a0<\/strong>to 2019 pre-pandemic levels in 2025. Analyst<strong>\u00a0Ronalyn Joyce Lalimo<\/strong>\u00a0said 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<p>Maybank highlighted&nbsp;<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/philippines-to-launch-e-visa-pilot-for-chinese-visitors\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">e-visa services for Chinese<\/a>&nbsp;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","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The figure was up 0.96 per cent in year-on-year terms.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":176,"featured_media":26652,"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' tourism sector demonstrates robust recovery, with visitor arrivals and revenues surpassing pre-pandemic levels, driven by strategic infrastructure investments and e-visa initiatives. January tourism revenues hit US$1.1 billion, a 78.81% year-on-year increase, signaling strong economic indicators. Analysts forecast a full recovery to 2019 levels by 2025, supported by ongoing airport upgrades and enhanced capacity.","focusai_entities":"Department of Tourism (DOT), Christina Garcia-Frasco, Maybank Securities, Ronalyn Joyce Lalimo, Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA), New Manila International Airport","focusai_location":"Philippines, South Korea, United States, Japan, Canada, Australia, China, Taiwan, United Kingdom, Singapore, France, Manila","focusai_target_profile":"ceo_executive (0.9), regulator (0.7), investor_analyst (1.0), journalist_researcher (0.8)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"Infrastructure ROI?","query":"What is the projected return on investment for the 'Build Better More' infrastructure program, specifically concerning its impact on long-term tourism revenue and foreign direct investment in the Philippines?"},{"label":"Economic Diversification Strategy?","query":"How does the sustained recovery of the tourism sector influence the Philippines' broader economic diversification strategy and its attractiveness for capital markets beyond traditional sectors?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[157,16333],"tags":[23632,23907],"class_list":["post-777023814","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business-news","category-south-east-asia-news","tag-integrated-resorts","tag-land-based-casino"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777023814","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=777023814"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777023814\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":777023861,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777023814\/revisions\/777023861"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26652"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=777023814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=777023814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=777023814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}