Filipinos boost their spending in pursuit of their love for travel.
Data from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) showed domestic tourism expenditure – which covers expenditures of resident visitors within the country either as domestic trip or part of an international trip – grew by 72.3 percent in 2023. Last year, domestic tourists spent P2.67 trillion from P1.55 trillion in 2022.
Meanwhile, outbound tourism expenditure or the amount spent by Filipinos who travelled abroad last year grew by10 percent to P208.25 billion from P189.29 billion in 2022.
The PSA Philippine Tourism Satellite Accounts classified the expenses of tourists in various tourism-related products, including accommodation services, food and beverage serving activities, transport services, travel agencies and other reservation services, entertainment and recreation services, shopping, and miscellaneous services.
For Filipino outbound tourists, accommodation accounted for the biggest chunk of the expenditure at P60.49 billion, followed by food and beverage, P38.39 billion and entertainment P29.12 billion.
For domestic tourism expenses, shopping took the lion’s share of P684.49 billion followed by accommodation, P585.84 billion and souvenirs, P537.74 billion.
Prior to the pandemic, domestic tourism expenditure was on the upswing at P2.84 trillion in 2018 to P3.14 trillion in 2019.
Similarly, Filipino spending for travels abroad was on a growth trajectory, reaching P333 billion in 2018 and P340 billion in 2019.
