South Koreans have ‘discovered’ the Philippines

<H2>South Koreans have ‘discovered’ the Philippines</H2>Beting Laygo Dolor, Jun 15, 2005 MANILA — Global travel executives have long known that as a country develops economically, more and more of its citizens go on business and pleasure tours. In the last few years, it is the South Koreans who have become globetrotters. For the first time, South Korea has overtaken Japan as the Philippines’ primary source of foreign tourists in the region, the Philippine Department of Tourism announced at the start of the week. The U.S. remains the number one source of tourists to the country. DoT figures for the first trimester of this year showed 184,109 inbound travellers from the U.S.. They were followed by 147,671 from South Korea and 138,620 from Japan. For the January to April period last year, the totals were 122,329 and 128,528 from Korea and Japan, respectively. “We believe the growth can continue,” Tourism Secretary Ace Durano told newsmen, “We hope this positive outcome remains until we reach our target of five million foreign visitors by 2010.” For the first trimester of 2005, a total of 852,583 foreign tourists entered the Philippines, up by 10.5 percent from the previous year’s 771,569. For South Koreans, the DoT adopted the slogan “Feel the Philippines” and prepared travel packages to appeal to the Koreans’ emotional nature. Koreans are generally attracted to the Philippines as an inexpensive honeymoon and golfing destination, according to the DoT’s Team Korea head Marico Basco-Ebron. After the Japanese, the Koreans have become the next biggest spenders in the region, and the tsunami disaster of Dec. 26, 2004 did not dissuade them from travelling. Immediately after the disaster, there was an upward spike of travellers, according to data released by credit card company Visa International. This spike was also noted by executives of several resorts in Cebu whom Philippine News interviewed right after the disaster. But travel within the region took a slump soon thereafter. The Philippines was not affected at all by the disaster, which struck such tourism-dependent spots as Phuket in Thailand, the Maldives and Sri Lanka. Indonesia also saw a number of spots wrecked by the tsumani, coming so soon after the bombings in Bali that drove away tourists from such countries as Australia, Japan and Korea. In a spate of seeming bad luck, and earthquake in the Indonesian island of Nias at the end of the first quarter depressed that country’s tourism industry even more. Yet while the Philippines was not affected at all, the entire Southeast Asian region’s travel and tourism industries were seriously harmed by the natural disaster. Realizing this, former U.S. president Bill Clinton told a World Tourism Organization congress earlier this year that “some potential tourists simply do not know that many of the resorts in the region are fully recovered and open for business.” A study by Visa after the disaster revealed that citizens of some countries were more traumatized than others. Specifically, Americans who still travelled to the region were spending just as heavily as before, while Taiwanese were discovered to be less open with their wallets. Most travellers were concerned about health and safety in the region, as well as the state of the infrastructure in the affected areas, according to the Visa study. With the perception on the region still not clear to long-haul visitors, the recovery of Southeast Asian travel and tourism has become more dependent on short haul travellers, meaning the Japan, Korea and to a lesser extent the China markets will be the primary sources of tourists in the short-term. Based on the data released by the DoT, the Philippines can rest assured that the traditional markets are intact, with the growing South Korean market likely to grow further. As Ebron said, the South Korean market has proved to be the most resilient source of tourists to the Philippines. The number of travellers to the Philippines may not be dramatic, but they are at least steady. 1 of 1