Country experience: Philippines: measuring inbound tourism
7.75. The main source of inbound statistics in the Philippines is the arrival card, which is filled out by all travellers entering the country. The Philippine Department of Tourism (DOT) and the Bureau of Immigration (BI) are jointly responsible for encoding, processing and generating reports on the volume of international visitor arrivals, as sourced from the arrival card, which has been identified as a “designated statistics” for tourism under an executive order in 1996. Although removing the arrival card has been proposed, DOT and BI are working together to improve the appearance and functionality of the arrival card to ensure that it remains a vital and critical data source for decision-making by the Government and the private sector with regard to tourism development and promotion. The critical data in the arrival card relevant to tourism are the country of residence and the purpose of the visit.
7.76. A visitor sample survey is also administered by DOT on a regular basis in all international airports of the country to generate statistics on the demographics or profiles of visitors and their travel characteristics. The most critical data in the survey is the determination of the length of stay and the average expenditure of visitors, since they are important parameters for
estimating visitor receipts. The survey complements the data gathered from the arrival card as a major source of information for inbound tourism statistics and the tourism satellite account.
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