A CONGRESSMAN called on the tourism industry on Monday to promote the Philippines to its top visitors to ensure more visits until next year.

“We would urge the DoT (Department of Tourism) to consider shifting to rifle marketing — as opposed to shotgun marketing — and to concentrate on our top five suppliers of foreign visitors, namely South Korea, the United States, Japan, China, and Australia,” Quezon City Rep. Marvin D. Rillo, also the vice chairperson of the House tourism panel, said in a statement.

Mr. Rillo said “rifle marketing” targets specific markets and ensures more visitors compared to “shotgun marketing” or promotions catered to a wider market.

The Philippines received about 4.01 million visitors from Jan. 1 to Sept. 29 this year, closing in on the department’s target of 4.8 million visitors for the year.

Out of the total number, 91.58% or 3.67 million are foreign visitors and 8.42% or 337,426 are overseas Filipinos.

The visits contributed P316 billion to the economy and resulted in 5.35 million tourism-related jobs, Tourism Secretary Christina G. Frasco said in September.

Based on DoT data, topping the country’s visitors are the 1.04 million from South Korea, followed by 679,090 from the United States, and 221,671 are from Japan.

Visitors from China were at 194,258, while there 187,143 were from Australia, 164,168 from Canada, 146,396 from Taiwan, 114,096 from the United Kingdom, 107,674 from Singapore, and 72,008 from Malaysia.

“Their spending here contributes in a big way to creating new employment opportunities for Filipinos in accommodation, transport, food and beverage services, entertainment, and other economic activities,” Mr. Rillo said.

The Tourism Promotions Fund has been allocated a P1.26-billion budget for next year, he added. — Beatriz Marie D. Cruz

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