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Philippines wants to ease visa processing for Chinese and Indians


The Philippines is reportedly looking for ways to hasten the processing of “visa upon arrivals” for Chinese and Indian tourists after recognizing the importance of the two markets, local media reports.

Department of Tourism Undersecretary Benito Bengzon on Thursday said that the department was looking at increasing arrivals from China and India.

“Right now, two major markets that we have to really look out in terms of facilitating entry are China and India,” Bengzon said.

Bengzon said the government is considering deploying Mandarin-speaking personnel to airports to better communicate with Chinese tourists.

In terms of tourist arrivals, South Korea took the top spot at 1.6 million tourists in 2017, followed by China, and the United States. India took the 12th position at 107,278 arrivals in 2017.

Tourism Secretary Bernadette Romulo-Puyat said they also wanted an increase in the number of tourists from Japan.

“As we face the next half of 2018, we look forward with excitement to hitting a new high in Japanese tourism arrivals by breaching the 600,000 mark,” said Puyat.

Puyat said that Japan remains the fourth top tourism market for the country, with total visitors reaching 584,180 in 2017.

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