Philippines celebrates with 5 million international visitors in 2023

The year 2023 is a win for the Philippine tourism industry as it welcomed more than five million international visitor arrivals from January 1 to December 31, 2023, recording more than PHP480 billion in international tourism receipts, according to Department of Tourism (DOT) Secretary Christina Garcia Frasco.

According to the monitoring data of the DOT, a total of 5,450,557 international visitors entered the country from January 1 to December 31, 2023, of which 91.80% or the bulk of international arrivals recorded at 5,003,475 are foreigners. The remaining 8.20% or 447,082 are overseas Filipinos.The new record is around 650,000 higher than its target of 4.8 million international visitors projected to visit the country for the entire year.

While South Korea retains its top spot as the country’s main source of international visitors, getting 26.41%of the pie which delivered 1,439,336 foreign tourists, it was followed by the United States with 903,299 tourists (16.57%) visiting the country; then Japan with 305,580 (5.61%); Australia with 266,551 (4.89%); and China with 263,836 (4.84%). Other foreigners who visited the country from other top source markets after China were from Canada, Taiwan, the United Kingdom, Singapore, and Malaysia.