GMA News reported that the rank of the sites representing Philippines in the bid to be included in the New 7 wonders of the world has gone down. You can still vote to ensure that one of the sites will make it to the magic 7. Please visit http://www.new7wonders.com/nature/en/liveranking/ to vote.
You can read my previous post regarding New 7 Wonders of the world.
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Christine "Happy Slip" Gambito has finally arrived in the Philippines to serve as a Tourism Ambassador. I'm actually very excited for her. I've seen her recent video and saw the other side of Christine. She brought laughter to us a lot of times, but in that video she just expressed how she truly felt coming to her parents' homeland.
It really amazes me that Filipinos living abroad feel proud about our country. Happy Slip serves as a reminder for us Filipinos living here in the Philippines to appreciate the country even more. God bless Christine on your work as our newest tourism ambassador. Kudos also to the Filipino parents abroad for making sure that their children would always be proud of their roots!
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Tourist arrivals breach three-million mark in 2007
STATE TOURISM data show that 8.7% more tourists arrived last year over 2006, spending 40% more than total tourist expenditures recorded in 2006.
The summary of the Tourism department’s yearend report showed that tourist arrivals breached the 3-million mark after staying within the 2-million territory from 2004-2006.
Specifically, number of arriving tourists rose 8.7% to 3.091 million last year from 2.843 million in 2006.
The 2006 figure was 8.4% more than 2.623 million in 2005, which in turn was 14.4% more than the 2.291 million recorded in 2004.
Tourists last year spent a total of $4.885 billion, or 40% more than the $2.622-billion tourist spending recorded in 2006. Last year’s amount was also nearly a third more than the $3.782-billion target set for 2007.
The 2006 amount was 17% more than the $2.236 billion in 2005, which in turn was 12% more than the $1.99 billion recorded in 2004.
The Tourism department targets tourist spending to rise to $5.8 billion this year.
The top 10 tourist sources last year were:Russians posted the biggest jump, doubling (128%) from 2006.
- South Korea, with arrivals increasing 14.2% year-on-year to 653,310, accounting for 21.1% of total tourist arrivals;
- US, rising 2% to 578,983 and accounting for 18.7%;
- Japan, actually dropping 6.4% to 395,012 and accounting for 12.8%;
- China, rising 18% to 157,601 and accounting 5.1%;
- Australia, rising 11% to 112,466 and accounting for 3.6%;
- Taiwan, dropping 2.4% to 112,206 and also accounting for 3.6%;
- Hong Kong, rising 16.3% to 111,948 and accounting also for 3.6%;
- Singapore, rising 15.9% to 94,008 and accounting for 3%;
- Canada, rising 13.4% to 91,308 and also accounting for 3%; and
- the United Kingdom, increasing 16.3% to 79,670 and making up 2.6%.
Smart and Department of Tourism came up with a great ad to invite Filipinos to come back to their home during the holidays. :) Such timely post as I'm going back home to Dapitan tomorrow. (edited Dec. 29, 2007)
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