Tourist spending up 40 percent
Chinese visitors topped tourist spending last year.
MANILA, Philippines - Visitor receipts surged 40.71 percent in the first ten months of 2017, driven by the influx of higher-spending Chinese tourists into the country.
Based on data from the Department of Tourism (DOT)’s website, visitor receipts from January to October 2017 amounted to P274.35 billion, up from P194.97 billion in the same period the year before.
In October alone, visitor receipts jumped 88.67 percent to P31.12 billion from P16.5 billion in the previous year.
The average daily expenditure for October stood at P6,862.03.
In addition, the average length of stay of tourists in the country is recorded at 7.87 nights. Average per capita expenditure of visitors for the month was pegged at P54,004.19.
Chinese tourists largely contributed to the growth in visitor receipts, as China bagged the top spending market for the second consecutive month, with receipts amounting to about P9.95 billion for October.
Korea followed China as it registered around P9 billion worth of spending.
“The US placed third with almost P2.48 billion spent, followed by Taiwan with estimated P2.28 billion spending and Japan with P1.50 billion,” the DOT reported.
Other countries in the top 10 spending markets are Canada, Australia, United Kingdom, Malaysia and Singapore.
“High spending markets Hong Kong, France, Germany and Poland recorded more than P200 million expenditures in the country,” the DOT said.
Meanwhile, China also registered the highest per capita expenditure for two consecutive months at P110,577.80.
This was followed by Taiwan with P107,413.18 per capita spending, while Korea recorded per capita expenditure of P64,619.67.
Other top markets with high per capita spending include France with P63,525.13 and Spain with P53,371.62.
Apart from contributing to the visitor receipts, China also saw a rise in visitor arrivals in October, doubling to 89,932 arrivals from 44,542 arrivals in 2016, a 101.90 percent growth.
Korea, however, retained the top source market spot with 139,218 arrivals.
In the first ten months of the year, Korea reached 1,332,141 visitors, accounting for 24.33 percent of the total arrivals.
“China is the second top source market with an aggregate volume of 810,807 visitors, corresponding to 14.81 percent of the total,” the DOT said.
Visitor arrivals grew 11.54 percent in the first ten months of 2017 to 5.47 million from 4.9 million in the previous year.
