Camiguin tourist arrivals up 37% in 2024
CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY—-The province of Camiguin, the premier island destination of Northern Mindanao, has recorded a 37-percent jump in tourist arrivals in 2024.
In his state of the province address on Monday, Gov. Xavier Jesus Romualdo said the number of tourists who flocked to Camiguin in 2024 reached 288,588, an increase of 78,317 compared to the figures for 2023.
Romualdo said the real-time information was captured by the provincial government’s “Isle Visit Camiguin” system, which requires those entering and exiting the province to register via a QR code.
The system has been in place since 2020, first set up for public health management amid the COVID-19 threat.
Of the total number of visitors, most, or 269,981, were domestic tourists, primarily from the cities of Cagayan de Oro, Iligan and Gingoog, and Bukidnon province in Northern Mindanao; Butuan City in the Caraga region; and Davao City.
Foreign tourists accounted for 18,577 in total, mostly Europeans, with notable numbers from France, Germany, United Kingdom and Spain. Other foreigners who visited the island province were Americans, Canadians and Australians.
Europeans
“We see that more than half of our foreign tourists were from Europe,” Romualdo noted.
The tourists mostly entered the province via the ferries that regularly ply from the port of Balingoan in Misamis Oriental province, at 82 percent, while only about seven percent came by flight from Cebu City and 9.5 percent through sea routes from the Visayas.
Romualdo said it was notable that about 1,000 tourists came to Camiguin using their own speed boats and yachts.
Demographically, majority of the tourists were young, with 31 percent aged 30 to 44, and 28 percent 15 to 29.
Hosting the active volcano Mt. Hibok-hibok, Camiguin is known for its sweet lanzones, pristine white sand beaches and other natural attractions, as well as a host of heritage ancestral houses that are deemed culturally and historically significant to the country.
