ILOILO CITY – More than one million tourists visited world-famous Boracay Island for the first time since the pandemic began in 2020.
The Department of Tourism (DOT)-Region 6 recorded 1,032,143 tourists visiting the resort island in Malay, Aklan from January 1 to July 31 this year.
Bulk of the tourists is domestic which accounted for 977,474 arrivals.
There were 35,575 foreigners and 19,094 Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) who visited the country’s crown jewel for the first seven months of the year.
So far, May had the biggest number of tourists visiting Boracay with 201,368. There were also 193,650 visitors in June and 183,096 visitors last July.
The numbers for the first seven months of 2022 signal that Boracay will be able to draw back the millions of tourists after suffering a slump for two years due to the travel ban during the lockdown in 2020 and the subsequent restrictions.
In 2019, Boracay had more than two million tourists. In 2020, tourist arrivals dropped by almost 84 percent, with only 334,455 arrivals.
As Boracay is open to fully vaccinated tourists and international flights have resumed at Kalibo Airport in Kalibo, Aklan, more tourists are expected to visit the resort island in the remaining months of the year.