DEAR Mr. President:
The Department of Tourism (DOT) has set a target of increasing our tourist arrivals from 4.8 million in 2023 to 7.7 million in 2024.
Looking back, the DOT reported that tourist arrivals increased from 2.6 million in 2022 to 3.8 million in 2023, representing an increase of 1.2 million arrivals. That is remarkable, because that represents an increase of 46.15%.
Looking ahead, if the 2024 target is achieved, that will represent an increase of 2.9 million arrivals, or an increase of 60.41 percent from the 2023 data. And if the numbers are correct, the DOT will be able to increase tourist arrivals from 2.6 million in 2022 to 7.7 million in 2024, representing a comparative increase of 5.1 million arrivals in just a matter of two years.
Sir, I have no reason to doubt the numbers that are being reported by the DOT, but how I wish that there will be a third party that will check their data, for purposes of accuracy and transparency.
Perhaps that third party could either be the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) or the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT).
Looking at this on the bright side however, this trend that the DOT is reporting is very encouraging, because it would now seem that our country is progressing towards the ideal goal of achieving double digit tourist arrivals.
Based on the 2022 data presented by Microsoft Copilot, there are three Southeast Asian countries that have already achieved double digit tourist arrivals. These are Indonesia with 16.8 million, Thailand with 11.4 million and Malaysia with 10.2 million.
In the same data set presented, Vietnam ranked fifth with 9.5 million and the Philippines ranked sixth with 6.4 million. I do not know why the data presented by the DOT is lower than the data presented by Copilot, but perhaps the DOT was just being conservative.
All told, it seems that the DOT is on track to reaching double digit tourism in the near future, perhaps before the end of your term,
Mr. President. For purposes of data accuracy and data purity however, it would be best if the headcount should not include the arrivals of Filipino citizens, particularly the overseas Filipino workers (OFWs). I think in the past, the data about arrivals might have been eschewed by the headcount of Filipino citizens who are technically not “tourists”.
Still on the subject of tourism Mr. President, perhaps you could instruct the DOT to also do more in promoting ecotourism, medical tourism, educational tourism and sports tourism?
In fairness to the DOT, the ecologic, medical, educational and sports functions belong to other agencies, and that is why interagency coordination might be different. Towards that end Sir, it may be necessary to put of new task forces or interagency committees, and it may even be necessary to issue an executive order for that purpose.
In theory Mr. President, the tourist arrivals will go up, if the crime rate will go down. That is another incentive for all of us to work towards lowering the crime rate, because the more tourists arrive, the better the economy will be, and that includes more jobs for more people.
Additionally, more tourists will come if they could drive safely everywhere. That may be a challenge, but there is always hope that with the right orders from the top, that could possibly happen./PN
