The Department of Tourism (DOT) remains firm in its commitment to ensure the increase in the number of tourist arrivals in the country even amid the huge slash in its branding and promotions budget for 2025.

In a Bagong Pilipinas Ngayon briefing Friday, Tourism Secretary Christina Frasco said the agency was still able to implement a global campaign “for Love the Philippines” that reached the United States, the Middle East, Europe, and many parts of Asia despite a limited budget on promotions the past year.

While it fell behind its 7.7 million arrival target, the country’s inbound visitors in 2024 still hit 5.94 million, at least 9.15 percent higher than the 5.45 million foreign visitors recorded in 2023.

Frasco attributed last year’s below-target visitors to the massive decrease in Chinese arrivals, as well as the suspension of electronic visas for the said market.

By the end of 2024, only over 300,000 Chinese nationals visited the country, well-below the 1.74 million pre-pandemic arrivals in 2019.

“In the wake of these challenges and many other matters beyond our control, we persevered and we diversified our tourism products, we focused on our top source markets, and we made sure that tourism spending was high,” Frasco said in mixed English and Filipino, referring to the record-high PHP760 billion tourist spending in 2024.

Promotions budget cut

Frasco said the huge slash in the DOT’s branding and promotions budget for 2025 from the proposed PHP500 million to PHP100 million would impact the agency’s promotion efforts in key markets, especially at a time when the country is trying to recover its pre-pandemic arrival figures.

“What will be affected by this is not just the ‘Love the Philippines’ campaign but our destinations itself that are ultimately the recipients of the promotions,” she said.

“We anticipate that it will affect tourism arrivals considering that the lesser opportunity that we have to market the Philippines, the lesser chances that there are to reach as many markets or people that we wish.”

This is not the first time the agency suffered a severe budget cut in its branding campaign. In 2024, its funding for this program went down to PHP200 million from the PHP1.27 billion approved in the previous year. (PNA)