France deems Philippines as biggest market

CEBU, Philippines - The Philippines has emerged to be the biggest potential market among the Southeast Asian nations for the world's top tourist destination, France.

In an interview with reporters yesterday in Cebu City, Morab Tayebi, regional director for Southeast Asia of Atout France, the promotions arm of the French Ministry of Tourism, said potential is huge in the Filipino market.

"The Philippines has the biggest GDP (gross domestic product) growth by 7 percent. There is also a rise of middle class here," Tayebi said.

"So we believe the potential is huge. We try to work hard on this market," he added.

In 2016, he said around 70,000 Filipino tourists visited France, registering a 5-10 percent from a year ago.

France remains a global leader in tourism, with 82.5 million visitors last year. 

Tayebi said the Philippines is currently the fifth largest market for France's tourism industry in Southeast Asia.

However, the Filipino market is seen to be the third biggest market in Southeast Asia by 2022, surpassing Singapore and Thailand. 

Currently, Indonesia and Malaysia are France’s first and second biggest tourism market in Southeast Asia, respectively.

Tayebi said they want to increase the knowledge of Filipinos about France more than what they usually know about the Eiffel Tower, a popular tourist site in Paris, France.

The official said tourism contributes about 8 percent to the French economy and is the biggest industry in the European nation.

Aside from leisure and MICE (meetings, incentives, conferencing and exhibitions), he said they have been promoting as well the spiritual tourism in France which involves the visiting of religious sites in the European nation.

Like the Philippines, France is also predominantly Christian nation, which makes it attractive for Filipino tourists.

France has the widest range of spiritual sites open to the general public of any country in Europe.

It has around 50,000 religious buildings, among which 10,000 are listed as Protected Historical Monuments and some are even listed as UNESCO World Heritage sites.

France also has 163 shrines, from the most famous cathedral to the smallest chapel. 

Today, Europeans and Asians account for the growing number of foreign tourists in France. Germans make up the greatest number of foreign tourists in France, ahead of the British.

On the other hand, the Philippines Department of Tourism had said it was setting its sights on the emerging market of France and targets to double tourist arrivals from the European country to the Philippines by 2020.

DOT Chief Wanda Teo said the tourism agency wants to tap into the growing market of French tourists in the country and entice more of them to visit in the next four years.

“The French travel market is prominently figuring on our radar as more and more tourists from that side of the world consider the Philippines as their choice of destination. And it is our goal to double these numbers in the next four years,” Teo was quoted as saying in a Philippine Star report.

In 2015, a total of 45,505 tourists from France were reported to have visited the Philippines. They also contributed $34 million in tourist receipts during the year.

France has been identified as one of the top 20 emerging markets of Philippine tourism, posting a 21.96 percent growth in the first seven months of 2016 to 35,378 arrivals from 29,007 in the same period in 2015.

The DOT would intensify its marketing strategy and further use social media to promote destinations in the Philippines to double the number of French visitors by 2020. (FREEMAN)