{"id":51874,"date":"2020-01-04T14:00:07","date_gmt":"2020-01-04T06:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/primer.com.ph\/blog\/?p=51874"},"modified":"2020-01-03T11:56:59","modified_gmt":"2020-01-03T03:56:59","slug":"dot-welcomes-japanese-couple-as-phs-8-millionth-tourist-in-2019","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/primer.com.ph\/blog\/2020\/01\/04\/dot-welcomes-japanese-couple-as-phs-8-millionth-tourist-in-2019\/","title":{"rendered":"DOT Welcomes Japanese Couple as PH&#8217;s 8-Millionth Tourist in 2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify\">Taking into account the numerous international recognitions and awards given to the country as well as the continued rise in the number of tourist arrivals, one can say that 2019 was a great year for Philippine tourism.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">And to cap the year off, the Department of Tourism (DOT) welcomed the Philippines&#8217; <strong>eight millionth visitor<\/strong> for 2019 last December 27!<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">She is Japanese national\u00a0<strong>Yachiya Imamoto<\/strong> who, together with her husband <strong>Tamio<\/strong>, arrived in the country at 1:33 p.m. via\u00a0All Nippon Airways Flight NH 869.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">They were\u00a0personally welcomed by Assistant Secretary for Tourism Development Roberto P. Alabado III.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-51881\" src=\"https:\/\/primer.com.ph\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/14\/2020\/01\/80361209_3257823560911160_5125390409408708608_n.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"854\" height=\"570\" srcset=\"https:\/\/primer.com.ph\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/14\/2020\/01\/80361209_3257823560911160_5125390409408708608_n.jpg 854w, https:\/\/primer.com.ph\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/14\/2020\/01\/80361209_3257823560911160_5125390409408708608_n-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/primer.com.ph\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/14\/2020\/01\/80361209_3257823560911160_5125390409408708608_n-768x513.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 854px) 100vw, 854px\" \/><em><span style=\"font-size: 10pt\">Yachiya and Tamio Imamoto arrives at NAIA and are PH&#8217;s 8 millionth visitor for 2019 \/ IMAGE DOT&#8217;s Facebook page<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">Beauty product dealer Yachiya Imamoto is from Yokohama, Japan. She is not a stranger at all to the Philippines having visited the country eight times already to see their foster family whom they host in exchange in Japan.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">&#8220;We are truly thankful to be chosen for this event. This our eighth visit here and we always visit our close friends in the Philippines,&#8221;\u00a0said Yachiyo.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-51885\" src=\"https:\/\/primer.com.ph\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/14\/2020\/01\/80383050_3257823600911156_6043987547841888256_n.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"854\" height=\"569\" srcset=\"https:\/\/primer.com.ph\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/14\/2020\/01\/80383050_3257823600911156_6043987547841888256_n.jpg 854w, https:\/\/primer.com.ph\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/14\/2020\/01\/80383050_3257823600911156_6043987547841888256_n-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/primer.com.ph\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/14\/2020\/01\/80383050_3257823600911156_6043987547841888256_n-768x512.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 854px) 100vw, 854px\" \/><em><span style=\"font-size: 10pt\">IMAGE DOT&#8217;s Facebook page<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">Aside from that, the couple also frequent beach local beach destinations such as Cebu, Palawan, and for this time around, they will be heading to Baler.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">&#8220;The Filipinos are very hospitable. I also keep coming back for mangoes, <em>masarap<\/em>,&#8221;\u00a0added\u00a0Tamio.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">Tourism Secretary Bernadette Romulo-Puyat expressed her warmest welcome to the couple and wished them, as well as every tourist in the country, a remarkable stay.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">Additionally, the arrival of the country&#8217;s 8th millionth visitor indicates that the\u00a0number of visitor arrivals for 2019 has exceeded 2018&#8217;s 7.1 million, marking an all-time high record.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">\u201cBreaching the eight million mark is another milestone to celebrate, as it marks the unprecedented growth of the country\u2019s tourism industry,\u201d remarked Secretary Romulo-Puyat.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><em><span style=\"font-size: 10pt\">Source:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/pia.gov.ph\/press-releases\/releases\/1032107\" target=\"_blank\">pia.gov.ph<br \/>\n<\/a><\/span><span style=\"font-size: 10pt\">Images grabbed from DOT&#8217;s Facebook\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/DepartmentOfTourism\/photos\/pcb.3257824224244427\/3257823527577830\/?type=3&amp;theater\">page<\/a><\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>To cap a great year for Philippine tourism, the Department of Tourism (DOT) welcomed the Philippines&#8217; eight millionth visitor for 2019 last December 27.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":51886,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[539,248,12172,6636],"class_list":["post-51874","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-current-events","tag-department-of-tourism","tag-dot","tag-phs-8-millionth-visitor","tag-philippine-tourism"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/primer.com.ph\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/14\/2020\/01\/dot8million_featured.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/primer.com.ph\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51874","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/primer.com.ph\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/primer.com.ph\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/primer.com.ph\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/primer.com.ph\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51874"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/primer.com.ph\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51874\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51890,"href":"https:\/\/primer.com.ph\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51874\/revisions\/51890"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/primer.com.ph\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/primer.com.ph\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51874"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/primer.com.ph\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51874"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/primer.com.ph\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51874"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}