MANILA – The Department of Tourism (DOT) welcomes another milestone for the Philippine tourism industry in 2023, after the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) released its preliminary full-year data showing that the department recorded a net trade surplus in travel services for the first time in 15 years.
In a statement released by the DOT, it expressed its elation after BSP data showed that the Philippines successfully breached the USD 100 billion export of goods and services mark, with the country recording USD 2.45 billion in net trade surplus in travel services, while travel services export receipts reached USD 9.1 billion, which is more than double the level in 2022 and constitutes 983.2 percent of 2019 travel export receipts level.
According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, trade surplus, in finance, means “a situation in which a country sells more to other countries than it buys from other countries; the amount of money by which a country's exports are greater than its imports.”
The DOT said that for the department, trade surplus means the spending by international travellers to the Philippines is greater that what Filipinos spend overseas.
The BSP report also revealed that travel services in 2023 contributed an impressive 18.9 percent share to the country’s total service exports of USD 48.28 billion.
The BSP attributed the growth to the “strong performance of the information technology and business process management (IT-BPM) sectors and a turn-around in tourism revenues.”
Tourism Secretary Christina Garcia Frasco hails this development as a testament to the collective efforts and dedication of stakeholders in realizing President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr.'s vision of positioning the Philippines as a tourism powerhouse in Asia.
“We welcome the latest numbers from the BSP report which sets an optimistic tone not just for the DOT, but to all our tourism stakeholders, and tourism leaders and shakers, even those who came before me, who have all worked tirelessly and shown nothing but resilience in the past difficult years,” Secretary Frasco said in a statement.
“As we continue to work towards achieving our targets for 2024 and the years to come, we endeavour to cement tourism’s position as a major economic pillar for the country. We count on the continued support of our partners in the public and the private sectors in delivering our strategies under the approved National Tourism Development Plan (NTDP) 2023 to 2028, and as far as fulfilling the DOT’s mandate on tourism promotions go, to be able to diversify the country’s tourism product portfolio to cater to more market segments and to highlight offerings, going beyond the already established tourism offerings and places, increasing accessibility to these destinations, and celebrating with our tourists the many reasons to Love the Philippines,” Frasco added.
Before this, the DOT welcomed positive news after the Philippines recorded 5.45 million international visitors to the country in 2023, successfully breaching its year-end target of 4.8 million.
