MANILA, June 16 (Xinhua): The tourism industry contributed 5.2 percent to the Philippine gross domestic product (GDP) in 2021, still way below the pre-pandemic level, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) has announced
The tourism industry's contribution to the GDP was 12.9 percent in 2019. It plunged to 5.1 percent in 2020, its lowest level in at least two decades amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
The PSA said the Tourism Direct Gross Value Added (TDGVA) amounted to 1 trillion pesos (US$18.66 billion) in 2021, higher by 9.2 per cent compared with the 917.20 billion pesos (US$17.15 billion) in 2020.
Among the forms of tourism expenditures, the PSA said domestic tourism expenditure posted the highest growth in 2021 at 38.7 per cent, followed by outbound tourism expenditure at 27.1 percent.
On the other hand, the PSA said inbound tourism expenditure declined 79.2 per cent.
Internal tourism expenditure, comprising inbound and domestic tourism expenditure, grew by 16.3 percent.
The PSA said inbound tourism expenditure, which refers to the expense of non-resident visitors, or foreign visitors and Filipinos permanently residing abroad within the Philippines, shared 0.6 percent of the country's total exports in 2021.
The PSA said the domestic tourism expenditure, which covers expenses of resident visitors within the country either as a domestic trip or part of an international trip, contributed 5.4 percent of the household final consumption expenditure.
The agency said employment in tourism improved in 2021.
Employment in tourism characteristic industries was estimated at 4.90 million in 2021, higher by 4.6 percent compared with 4.68 million in 2020. The share of jobs in tourism industries to the country's total employment was 11.1 per cent. - Xinhua
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