The Department of Tourism (DOT), Philippines has welcomed about 31,245 Indian tourists during the first five months of this year, recording an increase of 27.40 per cent, compared with 24,525 tourist arrivals from India from January to May 2014. The destination also plans to welcome tourists to the Philippine Shopping Festival 2015 which will be held from October 23 to November 8, in association with the Philippine Retailers Association (PRA). This was informed by Verna Covar-Buensuceso, Director and Officer-in-charge, Market Development Group, Tourism Development Sector, Department of Tourism (DOT), Philippines, while speaking to the press at the recently concluded multi-city roadshow in New Delhi post travelling to Nagpur, Chandigarh and Lucknow.
Comprising 11 trade partners from Philippines, this sixth roadshow by DOT Philippines was the biggest-ever delegation to India. The roadshows included interactive B2B sessions, education programmes and workshops and saw participation of over 300 key tour operators, MICE and up-market leisure operators.
“We aim to achieve 100,000 Indian tourist arrivals by 2017,” said Glen Agustin, Chief Tourism Operations Officer, Market Development Group, DOT, Philippines. He elaborated that they conducted a familiarisation trip for Kolkata-based tour operators wherein participants interacted with their B2B counterparts in Philippines. This has yielded excellent results and the tourism has been booming from the Kolkata since then, he said. Moreover, about 600 tour operators and counting have been certified under the Philippines Specialist Program (PSP) which has indeed assisted tour operators to lure tourists from Tier-II cities as well. As per the trend this year, Indians are staying for seven days on an average and spending about USD 120 a day. Though the length of stay has increased, we look forward to increase the tourism spend as well, highlighted Agustin.
Agustin felt that the progress has been quite impressive and DOT Philippines will continue to remain bullish on the Indian market. “India ranked as the 13th top source market for Philippines Tourism, and we firmly believe that it has a huge potential to up its ranking. Weddings, MICE and Film Tourism are some products which we are aggressively promoting in the Indian market as of now. More than half of the tourist arrivals in 2014 comprised MICE travellers, especially incentive. In the year going forward, we plan to participate in PATA Travel Mart from September 6-8 in Bengaluru, Karnataka and thereafter in the Outbound Travel Mart 2016 from February 18-20 in Mumbai,” revealed Agustin.
Elaborating on the Philippine Shopping Festival 2015, Covar-Buensuceso, said, “It will be a two week-long sale where shopping malls and retailers in the Philippines will offer different discounts and promotions to entice people to shop and offer a unique shopping experience. In line with DOT’s ‘Visit the Philippines 2015’ campaign and PRA’s efforts in the development of the Philippine’s retail industry, the Philippine Shopping Festival aims to make the destination a new shopping hub in the Asia Pacific region,” added Buensuceso. She added that India is among the top 10 source markets to travel to newer destinations in Philippines such as Cebu, Davao, Palawan and Bohal along with the preferred ones such as Manila and Boracay.