MANILA – Tourist arrivals in the Philippines reached an all-time high in the first half of the year, according to the Department of Tourism.
A total of 3,706,721 people visited the country from January to June.
This is 10.40 percent higher than the 3,357,591 visitors recorded in the same period in 2017, the Tourism department said.
Malacañang welcomed the development.
“We are pleased to announce that foreign tourists continue to discover that it is more fun in the Philippines,” Presidential Spokesman Harry Roque said.
There was an 11.35-percent growth in June alone, when tourist arrivals reached 528,747 – up from 474,854 in the same month last year, Roque noted.
The Department of Tourism’s “continuous marketing promotions” and “aggressive actions” attracted tourism investments to the country, according to Secretary Bernadette Romulo Puyat.
“We are actually on track. We are halfway into the year and we are exactly halfway of our National Tourism Development Plan target arrivals,” Puyat said in a statement./PN
