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PRESS RELEASE
30 January 2004

Despite Crises, WOW Philippines Campaign Made 2003 Tourism Succeed

In 2003, 1.9 million tourists visited the Philippines compared to 1.93 million in 2002. The

slight drop - amounting to –.03% - was caused by the Oakwood mutiny, the threat of

Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), the Iraq war, political turmoil, and the

negative travel advisories from various countries.

In spite of these, tourism revenues for 2003 kept par with 2002 revenues because of the

Department of Tourism’s (DOT) Wealth of Wonders (WOW) Philippines tourism

promotion program, which kept the momentum of tourism success steady. WOW

Philippines is former Tourism Secretary Richard J. Gordon’s brainchild to promote

tourism and to inspire a culture of tourism among Filipinos.

DOT data revealed that the country received $1.74 billion in 2002. The latest DOT data

showed that $1.34 billion worth of revenue from international tourists were collected

from January 2003 to November 2003.

Tourism recovered in September of last year when the World Health Organization

(WHO) took the country off the SARS-infected list and 140,652 tourists arrived for a

2.5% increase. October showed additional recovery with 167,573 tourists or a 11.3%

increase. A 17.6% surge in November was welcomed with 170,921 tourists. The month

of December had the biggest increase for the year with 24.7% or 238,316 tourist arrivals.
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ADD ONE

For December 2003, the highest number of tourists came from the United States. With

55,165 tourists visiting RP despite the travel advisories and the state of terrorism alert of

their government, Americans comprised a whopping 23.1% of the total number of

tourists for the month. The other members of the top ten are listed below.

The Koreans were a far second with 34,226 tourists or 14.4%. They were followed by
the

Japanese (33,297 or 14%), HongKongers (14,503 or 6.1%), the Australians (11,578 or

4.9%), the Canadians (10,784 or 4.5%), the Taiwanese (8,900 or 3.7%), the British
(6,716

or 2.8%), the Germans (5,671 or 2.4%), and the Singaporeans (4,684 or 2%).

The WOW Philippines campaign targeted 2.4 million tourists for 2003. Despite the

foresaid difficulties of the year, it is a tribute to the DOT’s WOW Philippines program

that it attracted 1.9 million tourists and earned close to $1.5 billion in revenues to help

boost the Philippine economy.

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