Ella Montalban | Posted on March 8, 2020
Panglao island and Tagbilaran City are included in the list of the top tourist destinations in Central Visayas.
This is according to the latest tourism report by the Department of Tourism Region 7 (DOT-7) presented in Cebu City on Friday afternoon.
According to DOT-7, Panglao registered a total of 1,035,547 travelers who visited there last year. Of the total, 611,847 were foreigners and 423,700 were locals.
Tagbilaran City, meanwhile, registered a total of 335,833 travelers with 53,091 foreign visitors and 282,802 local visitors.
In the Central Visayas ranking, Panglao ranked third and Tagbilaran ranks sixth among all the other cities and municipalities in the region.
The other three municipalities in Bohol that registered the most number of visitors include Dauis with 65, 502 (36,455 foreign, 29,047 domestic); Ubay with 29,990 (29 foreign, 29,161 domestic); and Talibon with 24, 828 (463 foreign, 24,365 domestic).
Chinese and Korean nationals are the two top foreign markets in the province.
There were a total of 322,140 visitors from China and 117,265 visitors from Korea that visited Bohol.
But the biggest growth recorded in foreign visitors are those from Japan.
Based on the DOT-7 report, there was a 139.19 percent increase of Japanese visitors in 2019 at 32,281 compared to the 13,496 visitors in 2018.
Bohol province is still ranks second in the most preferred province to visit in Central Visayas in 2019.
Based on DOT-7’s Central Visayas: 2019 Tourism Situationer Report, the province places next to Cebu in terms of the number of both domestic and foreign visitors in the region.
There were 854,853 domestic arrivals in the province and 727,051 foreign arrivals which brings to a total of 1,581,904 travelers for the year 2019.
DOT-7 recorded a 5.73 percent growth rate compared to the number of travelers for 2018 at 1,496,129 for Bohol.