The lifting of a European Union ban on Philippine carriers will make tourism grow even more, even as tourist arrivals from January to May were higher than last year’s, the Department of Tourism said.
“(The lifting of the ban) augurs well for the industry and in meeting our year-end goal of 5.5 million arrivals and our 2016 objective of 10 million. Hopefully, [Philippine Airlines] services resume as planned and with the Civil Aeronautics Board’s move to start negotiations for new air service agreements with other European countries, we can expect greater movements from the region. Meanwhile, DOT and PAL can mount more aggressive promotions in that sphere to boost not only arrivals, but also investments,” Tourism Secretary Ramon Jimenez Jr.
The Tourism deparmtent projects 699,326 arrivals from Europe in 2014, 851,176 in 2015, and 1,036,000 in 2016.
In the meantime, tourists from Korea have made up most arrivals with 489,939. Arrivals from the U.S. have also been on the rise with 306,056 arrivals from January to May, up from the same period last year.
There were also 179, 984 Japanese tourists and 163,879 from China.
—
Photo: Allen Zhao
