International arrivals in the Philippines surpassed 300,000 since the country opened its borders last February after the number of COVID-19 cases were brought down.

During the ''Laging Handa'' virtual public briefing, Tourism Secretary Bernadette Romulo-Puyat said these were recorded "from February 10 to April 25''.

"We have surpassed the 300,000 mark. We received about 313,050 international arrivals, number one coming from the US, number two from Canada and now number three is Korea... for the Koreans and Japanese (they) are already coming," she said.

However, Puyat said current foreign tourist arrivals are still far from pre-pandemic level three years ago when around eight million tourists arrived in the country.

"For pre-pandemic levels, with regard to international tourist arrivals, it is still far from 2019, we received about 8.26 million tourists. But we are happy because at least we have already received 313,050 international arrivals," she said.

Puyat did not give figures for domestic travels but she noted tourist destinations, especially hotels give good feedback on the number of visitors during Holy Week.

"In domestic, we still don't have the exact numbers but (in) 2019, we will have about 110 million domestic trips. But based on the Holy Week, when I talked with the stakeholders, especially the hotels, they were fully booked," she said.

"However we still have to remind the public, although we are happy that we are slowly getting back to normal, we want to remind them that we still really have to follow minimum health and safety protocols," she added. Robina Asido/DMS