MANILA, July 19 (Xinhua) -- More than 3.7 million foreign tourists visited the Philippines from January to June this year, the Department of Tourism (DOT) of the Philippines said on Thursday.
The DOT said the visitor arrivals reached an "all time high" of 3,706,721, or an increase of 10.4 percent higher than the January to June 2017 arrivals of 3,357,591.
"This developed after arrivals for June 2018 tallied at 528,747 posting an 11.35 percent increase, compared to the 474,854 arrivals of the same month last year," the DOT said in a statement.
Tourism Secretary Bernadette Puyat said the DOT's partnership with the private sector and intensified convergence with relevant government agencies served as impetus in sustaining the upward trajectory of foreign arrivals.
"The DOT's aggressive marketing promotions and actions to create new air routes and develop new tourism products, travel facilitation, and confidence in tourism investments drummed up the industry and resulted to this stellar performance," Puyat said.
She quickly added that the big increase of arrival would not have been possible without the consolidated efforts of all stakeholders.
Puyar expressed optimism that the first six months of 2018 "is a clear manifestation that the target 7.4 million tourist arrivals by the end of year is achievable."
"We are actually on track. We are halfway the year and we are exactly halfway of our National Tourism Development Plan (NTDP) target arrivals," Puyat said.
