The number of tourists from Chinese who flocked to the island resort Boracay in the central Philippines during the first seven months of this year has more than doubled.
Marry Ann Sumillar of the Malay Municipal Tourism Office told Xinhua that from January to July the tourism office has recorded a total of 187,089 tourists from Chinese, up 138 percent from 78,686 recorded the same period in 2015.
In 2015, Sumillar said their office recorded a total of 177,926 tourists from China. "Chinese tourist arrivals started to pick up in August last year," she said.
During the first seven months of this year, Sumilar said South Korea tops the list of foreign tourists visiting Boracay.
She said international tourist arrivals rose by 29.47 percent to 558,014 during the January-July period.
Data showed that South Korea topped the number of foreign tourists with 193,536 arrivals from January to July this year, up 13.5 percent from last year's 170,408 visitors. In 2015, a total of 292,174 South Koreans visited the resort island.
China came in second, Malaysia with 18,356, and the United States with 15,290, Sumillar said.
She said data also showed that tourists from Japan, China and South Korea made up more than half of the total international travelers to Boracay, accounting for 429,800 arrivals or 77 percent of the foreign tourists.
She said the total number of tourists who visited Boracay during the first seven months of the year grew by 15 percent, or to 1,126,755 from the 973,434 arrivals in the same period last year.
Boracay Island, off Aklan province in the central Philippines, is famous for unsullied fine talcum powder-sand beaches, sapphire seas and spectacular sunsets.
