ASEAN Summit Set To Bring More Visitors To Philippines’ Cebu

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CEBU CITY, Cebu’s hosting of two Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) events this year can help stimulate the interest of citizens of ASEAN member-countries in the province’s tourism potentials, a senior tourism official said.

Department of Tourism (DOT) 7 Director Patria Aurora Roa said tourist traffic from ASEAN has never been big compared with the countrys traditional markets, such as Japan, South Korea and the United States.

“But the ASEAN events will give us better figures from ASEAN,” she said.

DOTs report on visitor arrivals in Cebu from January to July this year and in 2005 revealed that arrivals from the ASEAN make up only about two per cent of Cebu’s total visitors.

ASEAN groups Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam and the Philippines.

Cebu is the host of this year’s ASEAN Leaders Summit, which will be held in December. The ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Organization recently concluded their annual congress at the Marco Polo Plaza Hotel in Cebu City.

According to the DOT report, Cebu had 5,484 visitors from the ASEAN region for the first seven months of the year.

The number is an improvement to the 5,033 visitors in the same period last year.

The bulk of Cebus foreign visitors came from East Asia accounting for about 66.25 per cent of the province’s total arrivals for the same period.

About 87,730 of the 172,502 East Asians came from Korea, Cebu’s top market while 67,529 tourists flew in from Japan.

The rest of the tourists are from Taiwan, Hong Kong and China.

The number of Korean visitors in Cebu for the said period increased 20.12 per cent from the same period last year.

Koreans have been Cebu’s top tourist market since Japan issued a travel advisory on travel to the Philippines in 2001.

But tourist stakeholders in Cebu have continued to exert efforts to win back the confidence of the Japanese, saying the provinces tourism industry earns more from this market than from Koreans, who prefer to do business with their fellowmen.

Visitors from the Americas, which include Canada and the Untied States, increased 26.12 per cent to 34,862 form 27,643 in the same period last year.

Tourists from Europe increased 28.59 per cent to 26,027 from 20,240 last year.

Tourists from Germany topped the list accounting for about 2.21 per5cent or 5,763 visitors followed by those from the United Kingdom with 5,423.

Cebu also had 3,067 visitors from Switzerland and about 2,000 each from France, Italy, Netherlands, Norway and Sweden.

Cebu’s total number of foreign visitors increased 15.84 per cent to 260,377.

Total domestic travelers also increased 7.21 per cent to 449,778 during the period.

(PNA)