The country has surpassed the baseline target of the year 2022 by reaching the 2 million mark for international arrivals, according to the Department of Tourism (DOT).

DOT Secretary Christina Garcia Frasco shared the announcement in a Makati City forum on Saturday.

From January 1, 2023, to May 12, 2023, the country had a total record of 2,002,304 international visitor arrivals, surpassing 2022’s target of 1.7 million international visitors, based on the latest data from the DOT.

Frasco said that despite the challenges and difficulties of the pandemic, as well as, the other disasters that the country has faced, these did not affect the Filipino spirit and the beauty of the Philippines.

“Because of the priority given for the Philippine tourism by the Marcos Administration, we’re very optimistic for the prospects of our country in terms of being a tourism powerhouse in Asia anchored on the strength of our Filipino culture as well as the values of sustainability, resilience and global competitiveness. We are at the cusp of the massive success of tourism in the Philippines. You can feel it, you can hear it, you can see it, it’s our time Philippines, it’s our time to become Asia’s leading tourism powerhouse and with your help, we can achieve just that,” Frasco said.

According to the same data, South Korea topped the number of visitors in the Philippines with 487,502 (24.35%), almost a quarter of the total number. Next is the United States of America (US) with 352,894 (17.62%), followed by Australia with 102,494 (5.12%) for second and third place respectively. Fourth is Canada with 98,593 (4.92%) and Japan with 97,329 (4.86%).

Included in the other half of the top 10 international visitors are China (75,043), Taiwan (62,654), the United Kingdom (62,291), Singapore (53,359), and Malaysia (36,789).