The number of passenger arrivals for the last quarter of 2023 is expected to reach four million or closer to the pre-Covid-19 figures, the Bureau of Immigration (BI) said on Monday, Oct. 30.
BI Spokesperson Dana Mengote-Sandoval said the increase is expected because "every country is open already after the pandemic."
Thus, Sandoval said that “for the entire fourth quarter what we are projecting is that the total number of arrivals will reach up to four million."
Citing data, Sandoval said that before the Covid-19 pandemic broke out in the country in 2020, the Department of Tourism (DOT) recorded that there had been 8,260,913 visitor arrivals in 2019 or 15.24 more than those in 2018.
At the same time, Sandoval said that during the the last quarter of 2023 “the total number of passenger departures would be around 3.8 million departures.”
“The other day we recorded almost 40,000 arrivals and departures per day,” she noted.
She also said that the months of November and December are considered the peak season for travel to the country.
“Most of the travelers would be traveling around this season until January,” she said.
Thus, she said, “the Bureau of Immigration really prepared for November and December in particular.”
She said: “We have in place additional immigration officers. We have put up an augmentation team to ensure that there is enough personnel for our frontline operations."
About 1,000 immigration officers have been assigned at the country’s international ports, she also said.
“Since we have limited space, particularly in NAIA (Ninoy Aquino International Airport), the management has thought of putting up mobile counters just to be able to ease the flow of passengers in the immigration area,” she added.