3,139,422: Total number of tourists who visited the Philippines in 2008.

301,175: Number of tourist arrivals in the country in December 2008, the month with the highest record of visitor arrivals last year.

6: Rank of RP among Southeast Asian Nations in tourist arrivals in 2007.

3.2 million: Department of Tourism?s projected visitor arrivals for 2009.

735,981: Total number of domestic tourists who visited Laguna, the most visited destination in the Philippines, in the first half of 2007. Other favorite destinations were Quezon (529,764), Cebu (442,056) and Baguio City (417,933).

10.4 million: Total number of domestic passengers who traveled by plane in 2007.

1.9 million: Number of domestic passengers who traveled by plane from Manila to Cebu and vice versa in 2007, the highest recorded number of passenger traffic by plane for that year.

13,967: Total number of available hotel rooms in Cebu in 2008.

43.5: Percentage of Filipinos aged 15 years and older in 2005 (or roughly 24 million) who traveled locally from April to September of that year.

12 million: Estimated number of domestic travelers who stayed overnight in their destinations in 2005.

4: Predicted percentage increase per year of the domestic tourism and travel industry from 2008 to 2018, according to the 2008 Tourism Satellite Accounting study by the World Travel and Tourism Council.

3.25 million: Total number of direct employment in the tourism industry as of 2007. This represented 9.7 percent of total employment in the Philippines for that year.

Compiled by Schatzi Quodala, Inquirer Research
Sources: Department of Tourism, Civil Aeronautics Board, 2005 Household Survey on Domestic Visitors and PDI Archives