MANILA, June 3 (Xinhua) — The Philippines hopes to draw as much as 2 million Chinese vacationers this 12 months amid the Southeast Asian nation’s efforts to take away the cap for issuing e-visa for Chinese nationals, Philippine Tourism Secretary Christina Gracia Frasco has mentioned.
The Department of Tourism (DOT) is “continuously coordinating” with different authorities businesses to elevate the cap on issuing e-visa for Chinese nationals to fulfill the bold goal, Frasco mentioned in an announcement on Friday.
“We hope to be able to inure, for the benefit of our stakeholders, the full implementation of the e-visa system by the end of this year,” Frasco mentioned.
In January, Philippine President Ferdinand Romualdez Marcos directed businesses to increase e-visa for Chinese, Indian, South Korean, and Japanese nationals to encourage vacationers from these nations.
According to the DOT, over 2 million overseas vacationers visited the Philippines from January to mid-May this 12 months. Some 75,000 Chinese vacationers had been amongst those that vacationed within the archipelagic nation well-known for world-class fine-sand seashores, limestone formations, and aquamarine lagoons.
As a key financial driver, the tourism business’s contribution to the Philippines’ gross home product stood at 12.7 % in 2019. However, the COVID-19 pandemic dealt a extreme blow to the tourism sector, slashing overseas arrivals and displacing nearly 1.1 million service staff nationwide.
The Philippines obtained over 2.65 million overseas vacationers in 2022 because it eased restrictions on overseas vacationers’ entry, incomes roughly 3.82 billion U.S. {dollars} in income. For 2023, the tourism division targets worldwide arrivals to hit between 2.6 million to six.4 million “in a high scenario.”