International visitor arrivals to the Philippines edged up to 4.42 million in the first eight months of 2026, as the Department of Tourism (DOT) rolled out a public data dashboard aimed at improving transparency and giving industry stakeholders better information for planning and investment decisions.
The Philippine Tourism Data Dashboard recorded 4,415,860 visitor arrivals as of Aug. 31, up 0.78 percent from 4,381,585 in the same period last year.
The United States emerged as the country’s largest source market with 926,575 visitors, accounting for 20.98 percent of arrivals. South Korea, last year’s top market, followed with 744,732 visitors, representing 16.86 percent.
The figures combine eTravel data from the Department of Information and Communications Technology and Bureau of Immigration records, providing a more comprehensive count of international arrivals.
Beyond tracking visitor volumes, the dashboard provides public access to historical arrivals dating to 2010, outbound travel figures, major source markets, Tourism Direct Gross Value Added and tourism employment.
Users can also download the datasets underlying the platform’s charts, allowing businesses, local governments, researchers and journalists to independently analyze tourism trends.
Tourism Secretary Dita Angara-Mathay said wider access to data would allow stakeholders to identify opportunities and better understand the industry’s performance.
“Making this information available to the public is not just about transparency for its own sake,” Angara-Mathay said.
“When people can see the data for themselves, they become part of the effort to grow tourism, not just observers of it.”
The DOT said it hopes to institutionalize the dashboard, making public access to tourism data a permanent feature of the department.
