Pernia says Chinese tourists “minuscule” spenders

August 8, 2019

Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Ernesto Pernia said on Thursday Chinese tourists in the country are "minuscule" spenders.

Pernia made the statement when asked how the government would reconcile the need to attract more tourists to push economic growth and the concern raised by National Security Adviser Hermogenes Esperon Jr. on the influx of Chinese nationals on the country's security.

"We need tourists from other countries as well, especially the tourists that spend big when they are here and not those who are minuscule spenders," Pernia said in a press conference on the second quarter economic performance.

"Actually, if you look at the date on tourist receipts from various types of tourists, they seemed to be rather on the low side. They stay longer, but they spend less," he added.

In the event, he said that tourism holds a huge potential for the country, especially since travel has been largely insulated from the trade wars and other tensions abroad.

"Strategic and sustained efforts to ramp up the tourist sector will greatly help compensate for the moderation of goods exports," he said.



In 2018, China was the second top source of visitors in the Philippines, next to South Korea. There were 1,255,258 Chinese visitors in the country in 2018.

Pernia said the government is trying to attract more tourists, such as European, Japanese, and Koreans. 

On the security aspect regarding the influx of Chinese tourists, National Economic and Development Authority Undersecretary Rosemarie Edillon said there could be "other instruments" to achieve the security objective and that of the tourism objective.

"So, it doesn't really have to be an outright ban or something or limiting.  There could be other things that can be done to achieve those objectives," she said. 

Esperon earlier raised concern about reports whole buildings in some areas in Metro Manila were fully occupied by Chinese.

He has said it could be considered as a threat when foreigners, regardless of nationality, come in, and their intent was not clear and some of them were undocumented or have false documentation and ended up as workers. Celerina Monte/DMS