♥ Saturday, January 29, 2011
Tourist arrivals up 19% in 2010 despite scares.
MANILA, Phlippines - The country saw a rebound in visitor arrivals last year despite a deadly tourist bus hijack and foreign warnings of terror attacks, the government said on Monday. A total of 3.45 million foreigners went through the country’s main ports of entry in 2010, up from 2.89 million in 2009, interim Immigration chief Ronaldo P. Ledesma said in a statement.
Data from the Manila International Airport Authority (MIAA), meanwhile, showed that the number of passengers on international flights to the country rose by 6.4% to 3.59 million last year, reversing 2009’s 6.2% slump.
International passenger traffic, or total inbound and outbound passengers, increased by 6.3% to 7.3 million people in 2010 from 6.87 million a year earlier. The Philippines has long been troubled by an Islamic militant movement engaged in bombings and kidnappings, mainly in the south of the country. The country’s international reputation took a hit in August when a botched police rescue effort to end a bus hijacking stand-off in Manila left eight Hong Kong tourists dead.
The immigration bureau said visitor arrivals fell to 188,028 in September, amid the immediate fallout of the hostage fiasco. But it said the numbers picked up strongly to an average of nearly 230,000 visitors for each of the last three months of the year.
REACTION:
I cannot deny the fact that the country I am living in is not as peaceful as the others and is even really threatening at times. For the past few years, a lot had happened and had caused fear amongst the tourists. Mentioned above are only few events that have caused the comedown of our tourism which in fact has a major role in our economy. We may have weak exports due to poor competitiveness, low capital investments, low consumer and business confidence, low investment in human capital, high unemployment rate but having these God-given places scattered all over our country, this would be a great help for us and to our economy. It would bring profits to our local and regional areas and most probably employment opportunities.
It’s stated that the recent hijacking and the current Islamic movement had resulted downfall in our tourism industry, but just occurred for a short expansion of time, and in fact it had heightened since the past years. Having this kind of after-effect meant that the government had been working and had been doing something for our economy. They had been doing their job and that the current administration had great positive influence to other nations that they had ensured their people to come and visit our homeland once again.
