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[av_heading heading=’WV tourism up in 2017 with P117B in receipts’ tag=’h3′ style=’blockquote modern-quote’ size=’30’ subheading_active=’subheading_below’ subheading_size=’18’ padding=’10’ color=” custom_font=” av-medium-font-size-title=” av-small-font-size-title=” av-mini-font-size-title=” av-medium-font-size=” av-small-font-size=” av-mini-font-size=” admin_preview_bg=”]
By Rhick Lars Vladimer Albay
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February 15, 2018
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ILOILO City – Western Visayas with its many coastal destinations and eco-tourism spots raked in P117.84 billion in tourist receipts for the year 2017 – a few rungs higher than the P114.12 billion of 2016 – establishing a curve that shows the leisure and vacation industry in the region is on the upswing.
Tourist receipts come in the form of consumption expenditures or payments for goods and services made by foreign visitors with foreign currency resources – and the 3.26 percent increase in the region reflects the rising influx of more foreign tourists to Western Visayas.
In the Department of Tourism Region 6’s partial report (as of Jan. 23) for the entire year, it accounted for 5,268,120 tourist arrivals–higher compared to 2016’s 5,198,634.
Aklan is the leader in the region when it comes to tourist arrivals with 2,162,663 visitors in 2017, or nearly 41 percent of the total – the province’s popularity largely attributed to the island destination Boracay in Malay. Iloilo City follows as a far second with 857,068 tourist arrivals, followed by fellow metropolis-on-the-rise Bacolod City with 831,687. Rounding out the region are Negros Occidental (811,940), Iloilo Province (174,473), Antique (160,613), Capiz (156,238), and Guimaras Island (113,438).
In a previous interview DOT-6 regional director Atty. Helen Catalbastold Panay News that as early as January this year, they are already confident to reach their target of 5.5 million tourist arrivals this 2018.
“For the first quarter of 2018, considering our target for this year is 5.5 million, we expect for the region around 1.2 million for the first quarter, between January and March,” said Catalbas.
“For Iloilo City – excluding Iloilo province – we expect around 250,000 as the area’s contribution to the regional tourist arrivals for the first quarter,” she added.“We are expecting around 1 million from Iloilo City in the entire year of 2018.”
The province of Aklan remained the top earner with P89 billion, followed by Bacolod City (P16 billion), Iloilo (P15.8 billion),Negros Occidental (P15.3 billion), Iloilo Province (P3 bilion), Antique (P2.9 billion), Capiz (P2.8 billion), and Guimaras (P2 billion)./PN
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