A former student, Paolo who's now a travel writer and has his own blog published a very interesting article on the growth of the Filipino tourists to Japan. Read the entire article, Filipino tourists in Japan rose by 46% in 2015.
It then got me thinking about some thought-provoking things about the Filipino tourists to other countries. But before that, let's try to understand the comparison between the foreign inbound market and the Domestic tourists in the country.
The Department of Tourism (DOT) proudly declared that in 2015, the Philippines finally breached the 5 million mark. However, a more interesting statistics is that the domestic market reached more than 45 million on the same year.
It gets more fascinating when you realize how much money is scattered by those millions of travelers all over the Philippines. Look at the graphic below and let your jaws drop after realizing how really monstrous the tourism industry is.
I only got the 2014 stats, but you can easily get the grip. Domestic travel is a huge, HUGE industry! In fact, a lot of the emerging destinations in the country are anchored on the domestic market. The foreign market goes to Row 2 as a welcome bonus.
Now, let's go back the article of Paolo. Japan says that 268,300 Filipinos went to the land of Sushi and Sashimi in 2015. Now, that is really interesting....
But wait! There's more! The Filipino tourists is actually a significant travel market that lodge themselves to the Top 5 or Top 10 of inbound tourists in a lot of Asian destinations.
And how big is the Filipino outbound tourist? It's a whopping 3.8 million! Well, ts actually less than half of the outbound Korean market. But, hey! the Philippines is supposed to be a poor country, isn't it? But don't you think that it's something that we should seriously think of? The Filipino traveler is becoming more global. He travels for leisure and fewer percentages are going out to seek employment using tourist visa. He goes to Japan to see the cherry blossoms, to Korea to experience snow and kpop things. He goes on tours and backpacking. He knows airbnb and couchsurfing.
Do you know the worth of the Filipino outbound tourist? If we do some industry-based guessing, say, each Filipino traveler spends an average of $1,500, then the probable total expenditure would be.... drumroll.... $5.7 Billion. Yep! That's about Php245 Billion if we convert by 43 pesos. Amazing, Isn't it?!
What then the Philippines should do? Yeah, is it a problem? An opportunity? I will leave it here. Maybe you can think of a lot of scenarios that our travel industry can make use of.