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MANILA - (UPDATED 2:53 p.m.) The Aquino administration has doubled the Deparment of Tourism’s budget for next year to build the image of the country and attract more foreign visitors.
During the Philippine Economic Briefing on Monday, Tourism Secretary Ramon Jimenez Jr. said Congress recently approved the department’s promotion budget at P1.5 billion next year from P750 million this year.
Jimenez said the country's new tourism campaign is going to break "soon" so the government can prime the key markets for the peak season in the first quarter of next year.
"The Philippines never put the money where its mouth is in terms of developing images that you can call tourism. It's not that the image is bad, the image is zero, which is just bad if you are in the tourism business," Jimenez said, adding that the Philippines never had a country brand.
"The good news is, if we are successful with our tourism business, then the Philippines has the potential to become a 'first semester' performer, because by definition tourism is a first semester business. The peak season begins in November, December through January all through March," he said.
Jimenez said the agency expects to meet its arrivals target of 4.5 million this year despite "challenges."
"We are on our way to meet the 4.5 million tourism target this year," he said.
He, however, cited challenges in meeting the target, such as connectivity and bad weather.
In the first half of the year, the DOT reported an 11.68 percent growth in tourist arrivals to 2.143 million.
The most number of visitors came from Korea with 474,685, followed by the US, 354,259; Japan,195,504; China, 150,749; and Taiwan, 114,269. Other major contributors were Australia, Singapore, Canada, Hong Kong and United Kingdom
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