Local travel agencies see ‘robust’ year for PH tourism

Philippine earnings from inbound tourists reached a new high in 2024 at P760.5 billion even as the government failed to meet its full-year target volume of overseas visitors during the period.–INQUIRER.net

MANILA, Philippines — A local group of travel agencies is bullish about a strong uptake in tourist bookings this year, signaling a renewed confidence from the sector which hit P760 billion in revenues in 2024.

“Our outlook for the year is that it will be very robust,” Philippine Travel Agencies Association (PTAA) president Evangeline Manotok told the Inquirer on the sidelines of their press conference for the upcoming PTAA Travel Tour Expo in February.

“We see that there is strong interest for Filipinos to travel to new destinations and it has increasingly become part of their normal lives to travel,” Manotok said.

She said that there are also strong indications that travel bookings will grow this year, noting in particular the more than 1 million tourist bookings that were recorded for Filipinos who traveled to Hong Kong alone in 2024.

“And then the Taiwan Tourism Board also said that we had over 300,000 visitors,” Manotok said.

Countries like South Korea and Japan also show promise based on their booking numbers and from the respective countries’ tourism boards, said the PTAA official.

“South Korea has so many destinations they are promoting,” she said.

—ALDEN M. MONZON