The report did not include data from October to November, and Demapan admitted that the visitor arrivals would have been lower if those months were considered.
The arrivals from Japan during the second quarter of 2010 totaled 35,348 or almost 3,000 lower than the figure from same period in 2009 which was 38,199.
But the report indicates this decrease was compensated by more arrivals from Korea and China: from 19,000 in the second quarter of 2009, arrivals from Korea went up to 27,193 in the same period in 2010.
From 3,792 in the second quarter of 2009, arrivals from China reached 8,940 during the same period in 2010.
The “rebounds” in the third quarter of 2010 were also higher than that of the same quarter of 2009, report said.
Demapan attributed these to the continuously increasing number of people arriving from Korea and China.
From 21,852 in the third quarter of 2009, arrivals from Korea grew to 29,526 in the same period of 2010; and from 7,890 in 2009, arrivals from China and Hong Kong went up to 11,335 during the same period in 2010.
This trend, Demapan added, “greatly assisted the economy.”
He said the administration plans to expand the Japan air service stabilization program to include other Asian countries by imposing a $15 fee on every arriving tourist.
No signs of improvement
But House Minority Floor Leader Diego T. Benavente in a separate interview said there is no indication that the economy is finally improving.
It has been so bad in the last few years that he could not really tell if the economy really picked up last year, he added.
“I really don’t know. There seemed to be some indication that it was a little bit better but that ‘a little bit better’ is always relative to where we were at before we got a ‘little bit better,’ ” he said.
He said times are still hard for everybody.
“We are still facing payless paydays and we reduced even further the proposed budget. So whatever the indicator is showing at this point is probably something that is not going to make an impact to the situation,” he said.
“If we see an increase in revenue, then that is certainly a major indicator,” he added.
But right now, he said, “I just don’t see anything that suggests that things are better.”
