South Korea remains the Philippines’ top source of foreign arrivals for 2024, which delivered a solid 26.66 percent or 1,505,251 visitors, the Department of Tourism (DOT) said.

The United States came second by bringing 15.75 percent or 889,489 visitors to the country, followed by Japan with 6.51 percent or 367,747, it added.

China took the fourth spot with 5.43 percent or 306,549 visitors, and Australia in fifth with 4.41 percent or 249,130 visitors.

The Philippines registered a total of 5,646,351 international visitor arrivals as of December 17, of which 91.66 percent or 5,175,599 are foreign tourists, while the remaining 8.34 percent, or 470,752 are overseas Filipinos.

The DOT reported Tuesday during its yearend press briefing that Philippine tourism has earned P712 billion in estimated visitor receipts from January 1 to December 15, 2024, representing a 119 percent recovery rate from 2019 numbers.

Tourism Secretary Christina Frasco said while it has been a practice to only look at arrivals as a measure of tourism success every year, she encouraged the press to have a wider perspective on the full faculty of facts.

“Focus on the numbers that matter: visitor receipts, tourism spend, length of stay, tourism employment, for these are what drive our economy and employ our people, and in all of these numbers, the Philippines is performing exceptionally well,” she emphasized.

Based on the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) April 2024 Labor Force Survey, 16.4 million or 34.11 percent of the country’s overall employment came from tourism’s direct and indirect jobs, providing goods or services to foreign tourists, local visitors, or tourism-related businesses.

Among the Philippine regions, Region 4A (Calabarzon) had the highest employment in tourism at 2.92 million, followed by the National Capital Region (NCR) at 2.80 million, and Region 3 (Central Luzon) at 2.49 million. Region 7 (Central Visayas) and Region 6 (Western Visayas) came fourth and fifth, delivering 1.57 million and 1.07 million, respectively. DOT Office of Public Affairs and Advocacy