BORACAY – Tourist arrivals in Boracay Island slowed down for September this year.
According to Malay Municipal Tourism Office, there were a total of 124,491 tourists last month. Still, that is better than September 2022, when that visitor number was just 122,373.
The world-famous island, however, registered 29-percent growth to 1,682,586 tourists from January to September this year when compared to 1,304,115 of the same period last year.
The local tourism office further said that the month of September had the lowest number of tourists. In April, the inbound tourists reached 213,736, the biggest volume for the first nine months of 2023.
Year-to-date data also shows the number of international tourist arrivals rose sharply in 2023 compared to the first two years of coronavirus pandemic. Visitor arrivals recorded 351,913 in 2023 – a 420-percent increase from 67,697 foreign tourists of 2022.
Domestic tourism market also posted 1,296,672 arrivals for the first three quarters or 77 percent of the total visitors.
Boracay Island remains optimistic it could still achieve its targeted 2 million tourists by the end of the year.
In 2020, the coronavirus pandemic hiatus triggered decline in tourist arrivals, causing massive job and revenue losses. By sector, hotels and airlines were more impacted by the disrupted travel./PN