Philippine tourist arrivals rise 12% from a year earlier

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ABS-CBN News Report - The Philippines attracted 3.18 million visitors from January to October this year, with Koreans continuing to be the top tourists to the country.

According to data from the Department of Tourism (DoT), there were 3.18 million visitor arrivals to the Philippines during the 10-month period, a 12% increase from the 2.84 million arrivals a year ago.

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"The month of July produced the biggest arrivals with 360,784 while the month of February posted the highest growth at 18.52%. Auguring well to the tourism industry is the consistent positive growths recorded on a month to month basis," the DoT said.

Nearly half or 47.4% of the total arrivals came from East Asian countries such as South Korea, Japan and China. 

Koreans were the number one tourists to the country so far this year.  There were 756,863 Koreans visiting the Philippines from January to October, a 27.85% increase from the previous year. A spike in Korean tourist arrivals came in July and August, traditionally summer vacation months in South Korea.

Visitors from the United States came in second, with 493,861 arrivals for the 10-month period, a 3.7% rise from last year.

Arrivals of Japanese tourists from January to October were steady at 300,537, a 3.6% jump from the previous year's figures.

There was a significant growth in Chinese and Taiwanese tourist arrivals. During the January to October period, there were 155,579 tourists arriving from China, a 26% increase from the previous year. There were 121,679 tourists from Taiwan arriving during the 10-month period this year, a 26.2% increase from last year.

However, tourists arrivals from Hong Kong remained down. Hong Kong continues to impose a black travel alert, which means a ban on their nationals from traveling to the Philippines as a result of the August 23, 2010 hostage crisis.

Which is your favorite tourist spot in the Philippines? Write your answer in the comment box below.

source: ABS-CBN News

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