فیلیپین در مسیر رسیدن به 6.8 میلیون بازدید کننده است

MANILA, Philippines – International visitor arrivals likely exceeded 500,000 in February, on track to reach 6.8 million in the whole of 2014, based on “very good” indicators, Tourism Secretary Ramon Jimenez said Tuesday.

“It looks like we will exceed last year which means that the arrivals for February would have exceeded 500,000. We’re targeting to surpass the 1-million mark in the first quarter,” Jimenez told reporters at the sidelines of the year-end Philippine Economic Briefing at the Philippine International Convention Center.

Visitor arrivals reached 1.27 million in the first quarter last year and 4.68 million in the whole of 2013.

Jimenez said the growth in arrivals softened in the fourth quarter of 2013, but indicators pointed to a recovery in the first quarter this year.

“Our recovery for the semester after softening in the last quarter last year were coming in very strong. If you look at the January to February results, although not yet final, the numbers are very strong,” he said.

Jimenez said the department was optimistic it would reach the target of 6.8 million tourist arrivals this year, on the back of aggressive marketing campaign here and abroad.

“We were supposed to close 2013 with 5 million but we ended at 4.7 million. We need a little push and we’re sticking to our 6.8 million tourist arrivals target this year, because our capacity is really 6 million, so we’re going to push for that,” Jimenez said.