Accoring to the United Nations World Tourism Organization's World Tourism Barometer, the country's tourism growth rate was higher than the world average tourism growth and average growth for Asia and the Pacific.
The five top source markets for the Philippines in 2018 were South Korea with 1.5 million; China with 1.25 million; the United States with one million; Japan (631,000) and Australia (280,000) travellers.
Two best months in terms of tourist arrivals for the Philippines were December when almost 688.000 travellers entered the country, yielding only to January when 732.000 visitors were welcomed.
While the results seem quite good they are still inferior to the 2018 target of 7.4 million tourist arrivals. It is in greater part due to the six-month shutdown of Boracay, the Philippines' major tourist destination. The closer of Boracay for rehabilitation resulted in about 480,000 visitors arrivals loss.
Philippines International Visitors Arrivals 2018 Record Breaking
News in AsiaThe Department of Tourism (DOT) of the Philippines has reported this Thursday that the international tourist arrivals in 2018 reached the record breaking 7.1 million visitors, an impressive 7.68% increase compared to 6.62 million visitors the country welcomed in 2017.