MANILA, Sept. 6 (Xinhua) -- More than one million Chinese tourists visited the Philippines from January to July this year, the Philippine Department of Tourism (DOT) said on Friday.
The DOT said in a report that the foreign tourists that visited the Philippines in the first seven months this year totaled around 4.85 million, a 12.4 percent increase over the same period last year.
South Korea remained as the top foreign tourist market with 1,113,274 arrivals, followed by China with 1,038,409. The United States came as third with 663,116 arrivals, while Japan ranked the fourth with 382,634 arrivals.
The department said Tourism Secretary Bernadette Romulo-Puyat owed the continued upsurge to the sustained support from industry stakeholders, government, host communities, investors and foreign travel trade counterparts.
With tourism becoming one of its most critical pillar industries, the Philippines is hoping to reach its target of 8.2 million foreign tourist arrivals in 2019, a million higher than in 2018.
The tourism industry was responsible for 5.4 million jobs generated in 2018, contributing 12.7 percent or 2.2 trillion pesos (41.96 billion U.S. dollars) to the country's gross domestic product (GDP), according to the government.
