DOT: More Tourists Visited the Visayas Than Any Other Region in PH in 2023
Tourist arrivals to Central, Western, and Eastern Visayas reached 2.45 million in 2023, making the Visayas the most popular and frequently visited region in the Philippines by both international travelers and domestic tourists. Tourism Secretary Christina Frasco revealed that the Visayas attracted 44 percent of the 5.5 million foreign tourist arrivals in the country last year.
Frasco made the announcement during her keynote speech at the League of Municipalities of the Philippines (LMP) Visayas Island Cluster Conference on Tuesday (October 29).
“This underscores the critical role the Visayas region plays in our national tourism development,” she said.
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The Visayas is home to some of the country’s most popular tourist destinations, including Boracay Island in Aklan, the beaches and old towns of Bohol and Cebu, and culinary hotspots like Bacolod in Negros Occidental. Frasco also highlighted the many awards and citations destinations in the Visayas have been getting, particularly from international travel and tourism publications. Readers of a popular luxury and lifestyle travel magazine, for instance, recently named Boracay, Cebu and the Visayan Islands, among Asia’s Top 10 Islands this year.
Visayas, has also become a hub for important tourism events, the secretary pointed out. These include the Central Philippine Tourism Expo held in Iloilo City, the Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) International Conference on Women in Travel in Bohol, and the First UN Tourism Regional Gastronomy Forum and the UN Tourism Joint Commission Meetings for East Asia and the Pacific and South Asia hosted in Cebu. Next year, Bacolod City will be hosting the first Terra Madre for Asia Pacific.
The secretary also cited local government units (LGUs) that have submitted the most innovative tourism infrastructure proposals to the DOT’s Tourism Champions Challenge (TCC), which was launched at the LMP’s national general assembly last year. These include Tubigon, Bohol for its volcanic plug; Badian, Cebu for its community tourism facility; Silago, Southern Leyte for its eco-heritage museum; Victorias City, Negros Occidental for its birdwatching site at Gawahon Ecopark; and Panay, Capiz for its coastal infrastructure project.
In her speech, Frasco emphasized the importance of the national government and LGUs working together to achieve the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to end poverty.
“All these initiatives reflect our shared goal of promoting local tourism and international tourism, but none of these can succeed without your partnership,” she told the delegates to the conference. “The localization of the Sustainable Development Goals requires a whole-of-nation approach, collaboration on all levels of governments, and therefore, as municipal leaders, your role in the success of these goals is absolutely critical.”
Frasco also asked for help from the LGU leaders to address the need to build infrastructure to encourage more tourists to visit destinations in the region. She said this was among the key goals under the National Tourism Development Plan 2022-2028.
“Focusing on basic tourism development is the only way by which we can increase the global competitiveness of Philippine tourism,” she said.
