MANILA, June 6 (Xinhua) -- Tourism industries, measured by the share of tourism direct gross value added (TDGVA) to the gross domestic product (GDP), contributed 12.7 percent to the Philippine economy in 2018, the Philippines Statistics Authority (PSA) said on Thursday.
TDGVA serves as the indicator to measure the value added of different industries in relation to tourism activities of both inbound and domestic visitors in the country.
"The TDGVA amounted to 2.2 trillion pesos (about 42.55 billion U.S. dollars) in 2018, higher by 14.3 percent compared to previous year's record of 1.9 trillion pesos (about 36.75 billion U.S. dollars)," Claire Dennis Mapa, the national statistician and civil registrar general, said in a statement.
Mapa said the TDGVA estimate is based on the latest results of the Philippine Tourism Satellite Accounts (PTSA) which also provides information on tourism expenditure and employment in 2018.
The PTSA results also showed that inbound tourism expenditure, which refers to the expenditure of non-resident visitors, or foreign visitors and Filipinos permanently residing abroad, within the Philippines, declined by 1.6 percent in 2018, amounting to 441.4 billion pesos (about 8.5 billion U.S. dollars) from 448.6 billion pesos (about 8.7 billion U.S. dollars) in 2017.
Compared to the country's total exports, the PTSA said the share of inbound tourism expenditure was 8.0 percent. "Inbound tourism ranked third among the biggest export items in 2018, after miscellaneous services at 31.5 percent and semiconductors at 22.8 percent," the PTSA data showed.
PTSA data further showed that domestic tourism expenditure, which includes expenditure of resident visitors within the country either as domestic trip or part of an international trip, grew by 21.0 percent, from 2.6 trillion pesos (about 50 billion U.S. dollars) in 2017 to 3.2 trillion pesos (about 61.9 billion U.S. dollars) in 2018.
Domestic tourism expenditure represents 24.9 percent of the household final consumption expenditure in 2018, PTSA data said.
The PTSA results also showed that employment in tourism characteristic industries was estimated at 5.4 million in 2018, higher by 1.8 percent compared to 5.3 million in the previous year.
Share of employment in tourism industries to total employment in the country was recorded at 13.0 percent in 2018, PTSA data showed.
