Tourism to Thailand has risen steadily over past 5 years

The contribution of the tourism industry to the domestic economy has risen steadily for the past five years, according to the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA).

In a report released late Friday, PSA said the contribution of the industry to the gross domestic product (GDP) – as measured by tourism direct gross value added (TDGVA) to the GDP – hit 8.2 percent in 2015. This marked a steady rise since 2011 when the figure was at 6.8 percent, before it rose to seven percent in 2012, 7.2 percent in 2013 and 7.5 percent in 2014.

“Tourism cuts across different sectors of the economy and the TDGVA serves as the indicator to measure the value added by different industries on relation to tourism activities of both inbound and domestic visitors in the country,” PSA said.

In absolute amounts, tourism’s value added to the economy was placed at P1.09 trillion in 2015, up 14.8 percent from P952.2 billion in 2014. In 2015, revenues from inbound tourism expenditure rose 10.7 percent to P306.6 billion. This pertains to the expenditure of foreign visitors and Filipinos permanently residing abroad.

Domestic tourism expenditure pertaining to local travels, meanwhile, hit to P1.88 trillion last year, up 26 percent year-on-year.