THE Philippines welcomed some 4.42 million in international tourists in the first eight months of the year, which included 355,757 Philippine passport holders permanently residing abroad.
This is a slight adjustment from the earlier released figures by the Department of Tourism (DOT), which showed that foreign visitors reached 4.11 million, of which 361,458 were overseas Filipinos.
The adjusted figures are a result of the DOT reworking its data collection strategy on inbound tourists, now tracking figures from both electronic travel (e-travel) records from the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) and the Bureau of Immigration (BI). These are published in the DOT’s newly launched Philippine Tourism Data Dashboard.
DOT Consultant Ma. Cherry Lyn S. Rodolfo told the BusinessMirror that there is a need to ‘accurately capture’ the visitors to the Philippines. For one, she explained, the diplomatic corps and visiting foreign government officials are not required to fill up the online e-travel forms, a usual requirement for arriving travelers from abroad, including Filipinos.
‘But [these diplomats] also check into hotels, go to tourism destinations, and the like,’she explained, even if they are in the country on official business. Rodolfo was among those tasked to finetune the DOT’s data-gathering method, in consonance with the Department of Information and Communication Technology, Bureau of Immigration and Philippine Statistics Authority, among others.
Unadjusted prior to e-travel
THE Immigration bureau said, ‘Passengers exempted from registering [on the e-travel] are foreign diplomats and their dependents; foreign dignitaries and members of their delegation; holders of 9(e) diplomatic visas; and holders of diplomatic and official-service passports.’ The BI issues 9(e) visas to ‘accredited officials of foreign governments, their families, attendants, servants, and employees.’
Last year, the DOT also said cruise arrivals may also not be accurate as some passengers were not able to fill up the e-travel forms, thus needing inputs from the BI.
Rodolfo agreed that it may be better to just ask those currently exempted to fill up e-travel forms. Under the new scheme, there will be a lag time in releasing tourists data as the DOT will always have to consult with the BI’s arrivals records.
The adjusted tourism data, however, only goes back to 2022, when the e-travel system was instituted owing to the pandemic. Prior to this, paper arrival and departure cards were filled up by travelers, except for diplomats and their dependents. As such, the inbound tourists in 2019, often used as a basis of tourism growth, is still recorded as 8.26 million.
The DOT said in a statement that the Philippine Tourism Data Dashboard is an open data platform that gives the public direct access to the country’s key tourism indicators.
US is top source
THE dashboard covers Visitor Arrival data dating back to 2010 and source markets, as well as Outbound Travel data from 2023 to 2025 and the travelers’ destination.
‘Making this information available to the public is not just about transparency for its own sake. It is about giving our stakeholders, from local government units to tourism businesses to ordinary Filipinos, the tools to understand how our industry is doing and where the opportunities are,’ said Acting Tourism Secretary Ma. Bernadita Angara-Mathay.
As per adjusted data from January to August 2026, based on country of citizenship, the United States topped the source markets for the period at 926,575 (up 2.75 percent, year on year); followed by South Korea with 744,732 (down by 21.75 percent); Japan 321,545 (-1.95 percent); China 303,567 (+93.45 percent); Canada 237,989 (+9.07 percent); Australia 237,849 (+5.73 percent); Taiwan 153,700 (+7.9 percent); the United Kingdom 151,574 (-3.41 percent); India 82,692 (+31.6 percent); and Singapore 74,704 (-1.66 percent).
The DOT introduced the Tourism Dashboard as part of its celebration of National Tourism Month in September.