The 2010 Household Survey on Domestic Visitors (HSDV) reported that about 23.1 million Filipinos who are 15 years old and above have traveled in any place within the country from April to September 2010 (Table 1). These domestic travelers represent 36.6 percent of the estimated 63.2 million Filipinos who are 15 years old and over.

The number of female travelers were almost same as those of male travelers (Table 1). The majority of domestic travelers (53.0%) were in the ages 15 to 34 years, of which, 29.3 percent were in the age group 15 to 24 and 23.7 percent were in the age group 25 to 34.

Most of the domestic travelers (98.6%) had arranged for their own trips. Those who availed of package tours accounted for only 2.4 percent. On the average, a domestic traveler had two trips during the reference period. Each trip has an average of two places being visited.

Pleasure or vacation was the main purpose of a trip for more than half of the travelers (53.3 %) followed by visit to friends or relatives and attendance to family gatherings (36.9 %, Table 2).

Of the total domestic travelers, about 21.6 million or 93 percent incurred expenses during their most recent trip. The average expenditure of travelers during their most recent trip was Php1,680. On the other hand, travelers whose main purpose of trip was for pleasure or vacation reported an average expenditure of Php1,807. Travelers spent largely on accommodation and shopping (Table 3).

Among the independent travelers, those with expenses during their most recent trip comprised 94.3 percent while among package tour travelers, 77.6 percent. Independent travelers spent Php1,601, on the average, during their most recent trip. Package tour travelers, on the other hand, spent three times (Php4,091) than the independent travelers.

Forty-three percent of the travelers whose main purpose of travel was for pleasure or vacation stayed overnight during their most recent trip (Table 5). A large proportion of these overnight travelers stayed for 2 to 3 nights (43.2%). The average number of nights spent was five.

The majority of domestic travelers (76.5 % of total travelers) including those who traveled mainly for pleasure or vacation (73.0 % of travelers, whose purpose of travel was for pleasure or vacation) stayed in the home of their relatives or friends (Table 6). Thirteen percent of the travelers whose main purpose of trip was for pleasure or vacation stayed in resorts while 7.6 percent in hotels.

The National Capital Region (NCR) was the most frequently visited place with 7.1 million domestic visitors from April to September 2010, of which 3.4 million traveled mainly for pleasure or vacation (Table 7). The other top destinations in Luzon were Cavite, Laguna, Pangasinan, Batangas, Nueva Ecija and Bulacan each with more than 1.3 million travelers. Likewise, Pampanga, Quezon, Benguet and Rizal were also listed as popularly visited places. In Visayas, Negros Occidental topped the list followed by Cebu, Iloilo, Leyte, Capiz and Negros Oriental. In Mindanao, the most frequently visited places were Lanao del Norte, Misamis Oriental and Zamboanga del Norte.

For the long weekends, Filipinos travelled the most during the Holy Week mainly for vacation (575 thousand travelers, Table 8) and secondly, during Labor Day (350 thousand travelers). During these long holidays, majority stayed overnight in the place visited, that is, 70.2 percent for the Holy Week travelers and 61.5 percent for Labor Day travelers.

Meanwhile, 149 thousand Philippine residents traveled to any place outside the Philippines from April to September 2010 (Table 9). Six in every ten of them were females (61.0 %) and four in every five were 15 to 54 years of age. On the average, each traveler visited one place in the foreign country. The top four foreign destinations were: Singapore, United States of America, Hong Kong and Guam.

A total of 8.8 million households received visitors during the six-month reference period. More than half (56.7 percent) of these households received day visitors while 15.7 percent had overnight visitors. The rest (27.6 percent) were host to both day and overnight visitors. Almost two percent of the 8.8 million households received foreign nationals, while 3.3 percent received Filipinos residing abroad.

Technical Notes

The 2010 Household Survey on Domestic Visitors (HSDV) was primarily undertaken in order to gather data on household information on domestic tourism that are vital to the effective and efficient development and implementation of tourism plans and programs. A joint undertaking by the Department of Tourism (DOT) and the National Statistics Office (NSO), this nationwide survey gathers information on domestic tourism for policy-making purposes. About 12,500 samples households were enumerated deemed sufficient to produce a national estimate.

One of the concerns of this survey was to determine the profile of domestic and outbound visitors and their travel characteristics. Thus, unlike the previous surveys, the 2010 HSDV covered not only domestic travels but included also international travels. Domestic travel is the act of moving from usual place of residence to another municipality in the Philippines by a person who is a resident of the Philippines (regardless of nationality), irrespective of the purpose of travel, length of stay and means of transport used. International travel on the other hand, is the act of moving from usual place of residence to another country by a person who is a resident of the Philippines (regardless of nationality), irrespective of the purpose of travel, length of stay and means of transport used. Meanwhile, domestic visitors also referred to as domestic travelers are any person residing in the Philippines regardless of nationality and who travels to a place (municipality) in the Philippines other than his usual place of environment for a period not more than 365 days whose main purposes of trip is other than the exercise of an activity remunerated from within the place visited.

For this preliminary release, only the information on the expenses of domestic travels was presented. The expenses covered only those that were incurred during their most recent trip. In the computation of average expenditure, those who travel with no report on expenditure were excluded. Travelers with no reported expenditure were those who during their travel did not incur expenses as they were paid for either by their family member or other persons outside the family.
 

  Source:  Income and Employment Statistics Division
                  Household Statistics Department
                  National Statistics Office
                  Manila, Philippines