Outdoor activities like forest bathing, a walk or jog in a park, and communing with nature continue to be among the attractions the city government is promoting to entice tourists to visit the city.

“We have lots of parks that are undergoing revitalization to make them more appealing to the visitors. Aside from planting more flowers and trees, thematic flower gardens have also proven to be a come-on to many,” Aileen Refuerzo, city chief information officer, said on Monday.

Lightings are also installed in parks to add to the attractions during special seasons, she said.

Refuerzo pointed out the city government is not just banking on its natural attractions — the beauty of nature, the cold weather, and the cool breeze — but is making efforts to add to what nature has endowed the city, to entice tourists and encourage them to come back.

Especially during and after the pandemic, the city government carried the “Breathe Baguio” tagline not just for tourism promotion but also to encourage people to take in the relaxing impact of being with nature.

Baguio City tourism officer engineer Aloysius Mapalo said the city receives about 30,000 tourists a week, even doubled during peak tourism season and on long weekends, with at least 70 percent arriving on weekends.

He said tourism could contribute about 20 percent to the city’s gross domestic product, with gross tourism receipts placed at around PHP120 million based on the 30,000 tourists that the Philippine Statistics Authority estimates spending an average of PHP4,000 a day.

In 2023, Baguio City recorded 1.31 million tourist arrivals, still lower than 1,760,729 in 2018.

In 2022, the city recorded 1,042,309 tourist arrivals; 247,480 in 2021; 1,536,458 in 2019; 1,521,748 in 2017; and 1,294,906 in 2016.

Mapalo said the numbers only covered data of tourists staying overnight as reported to the city government by accredited accommodation establishments (AEs) in compliance with Ordinance No. 120-2017 or the Tourism Statistics Standards of Baguio City and did not include tourists unreported by the AEs and the day tourists who did not stay overnight.

He said of the 2023 total, less than 1 percent or 0.64 percent are foreigners and 99.36 percent are domestic tourists.

“We are not really attracting a lot of foreign tourists. Mostly they are targeting other Cordilleran destinations and they only pass by our city,” he said. (PNA)