By Katlene O. Cacho
Monday, September 16, 2013
CENTRAL Visayas logged 1.7 million tourist arrivals in the first semester this year, reports from Department of Tourism (DOT) 7 showed. The number is up 14.78 percent from the 1.5 million recorded the previous year.
Of the number, Cebu accounted for 1.2 million.
Majority of the foreign arrivals are Koreans. Korean arrivals in Central Visayas grew by 27.80 percent or 257,998 from 201,877 in the same period last year. Japan came second with 98,851 or a growth of 9.07 percent.
There was also an increase of 2.49 percent in the arrivals from the US market, which hit 58,507.
Visitors from China, meanwhile, dropped by 24.58 percent. Only 29,187 Chinese visited Central Visayas from January to June this year compared to 38,692 the previous year.
Taiwan posted the strongest growth at 82.49 percent from 13,995 in arrivals last year to 25,539 this year. Completing the top 10 visitor markets are Australia with 20,967, Canada with 14,941 arrivals, Germany with 14,185 arrivals, United Kingdom with 12,756 arrivals and France with 11,694.
The Philippines generated 2.38 million visitors in the first half this year, up by 11.06 percent from 2.1 million arrivals last year. The growth is 43 percent of the target arrivals for the year.
The DOT said the tourism industry started the year with high hopes and expectations as arrivals for the months of January to March produced more than 400,000 visitors.
Months of February and June yielded increases of 15.52 percent and 14.01 percent respectively.
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