Tourism contributes 7.8% to Philippine economy in 2014

Tourism contributed about 7.8 percent to the Philippine economy last year, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) said Tuesday.

This was measured by the share of tourism direct gross value added (TDGVA) to total gross domestic product (GDP). Tourism cuts across different sectors of the economy and the TDGVA serves as the indicator to measure the value added of different industries in relation to tourism activities of both inbound and domestic visitors in the country.

The TDGVA amounted to 982.4 billion pesos (20.71 billion U.S. dollars) in 2014, higher by 14 percent compared to previous year' s 861.7 billion pesos (19.04 billion U.S. dollars).

"Among the tourism characteristic industries, accommodation services had the biggest share to TDGVA at 32.6 percent, followed by shopping of tourism goods at 15.3 percent, miscellaneous at 15. 2 percent, transport services at 12.6 percent, entertainment and recreation at 10.9 percent, travel agencies and other reservation services at 8.6 percent, and food and beverage services at 4.7 percent," PSA said.

The TDGVA estimate is based on the latest results of the Philippine Tourism Satellite Accounts (PTSA) which also provides information on tourism expenditure and employment.