More foreign tourists, especially Chinese and South Koreans, arrived in the Philippines last January, the tourism department said in a statement.

Tourism Secretary Wanda Tulfo-Teo said January arrivals totaled 631,639.

This reflects an “impressive growth” of 16.48 percent from the 542,258 sum for the first month of 2016, generating a sum of P 21.681 billion in receipts.

“We have to keep the momentum going now that we are in the implementation phase of the National Tourism Development Plan for 2016-2022, which aims to unleash the potentials of our tourism industry and make it more competitive,” said Teo, referring to the impetus gained in the hosting of the Miss Universe pageant last January 30.

Teo said there was a sharp increase of arrivals from China, which grew 76.46 percent, making it the third biggest market.

As in previous months, Korea is the biggest visitor market with 154,367 arrivals, followed by United States, 99,435; China, 85,948; Japan, 51,516; and Australia, 27,826.

Also posting significant growth in visitor arrivals are Canada, 24,352; Taiwan, 21,926; United Kingdom, 15,747; Singapore, 12,000, and for the first time, India with 11,805.

Data also showed an average daily expenditure of P 3,659 while average per capita expenditure amounted to P 38,823. Tourists stayed in the country for an average of 10.61 nights.

Korea remains the top spending market with visitor expenditure of almost P 6.5 billion. USA comes second with visitor spending of about P3.69 billion. Japan is third with P2.12 billion; Australia fourth, P1.59 billion, and Canada with P 1.09 billion. DMS