The Department of Tourism (DOT) reported that tourist arrivals in the Philippines dropped by 82.05% in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
DOT-Office of Tourism Development Planning Chief Warner Andrada said on Monday (July 19) that based on the department’s data, visitor arrivals, including both foreigners and overseas Filipinos, declined from 8,260,913 in 2019 to 1,482,535 in 2020.
South Korean tourists were the country’s top visitors, followed by American and Chinese tourists.
Meanwhile, tourism’s contribution to the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) declined by 64.2% in 2020.
According to the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), the industry’s contribution dropped from ₱2.5 trillion in 2019 to ₱973.3 billion in 2020. The internal tourism expenditure also plummeted from ₱3.7 trillion to ₱689.5 billion, while the inbound expenditure dipped from ₱600.1 billion in 2019 to ₱132.6 billion in 2020.
Tourism employment decreased from 5.7 million tourism employees in 2019 to 4.7 million in 2020.
(PTV News)/NGS- jlo
