A girl and her father ride a board in Boracay, the Philippines, on December 9, 2018. Photo: IC

The number of Chinese tourists from the Chinese mainland who flocked to the Philippines' premier island-beach resort Boracay during the first five months of 2019 reached 218,161, data provided by the Malay Municipal Tourism Office showed on Wednesday.

The data showed that the Chinese tourists who visited Boracay from January to May this year increased by 46 percent from the 148,964 Chinese tourist arrivals recorded in the same period in 2018.

The tourism office said the Chinese mainland is the largest source of visitors to Boracay, which is famous for its unsullied fine talcum powder-sand beaches, sapphire seas and spectacular sunsets.

The local tourism office also said new airline routes and warmer Philippine ties with China helped boost Chinese mainland tourist arrivals to Boracay.

Second to China is South Korea with 160,973 arrivals, up by 7 percent from 150,876 in the first five months of 2018.

The US, with 12,424 tourist arrivals, came third, the data showed.

According to the data, a total of 955,984 foreign and local tourists visited Boracay from January to May, 9 percent more than the 947,343 recorded in the same period in 2018.

Boracay, an island resort belonging to the municipality of Malay in Aklan Province, was closed for six months in 2018 to allow a massive clean-up and rehabilitation of the island to be carried out.

The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) said tourism managed to contribute 12.7 percent to the Philippines' gross domestic product (GDP) in 2018, up 0.5 percent from 12.2 percent in 2017.

The PSA said the contribution of tourism industries to the Philippine economy, as measured by the share of tourism direct gross value added (TDGVA) to the GDP, amounted to 2.2 trillion pesos (roughly $42.55 billion) in 2018, higher by 14.3 percent compared to previous year's record of approximately 1.9 trillion pesos.

TDGVA serves as the indicator to measure the value added by different industries in relation to tourism activities of both inbound and domestic visitors in the country, according to the PSA.

In a statement on June 16, Philippine Tourism Secretary Bernadette Romulo-Puyat said the data showed how sustainable the Philippine tourism industry has become.

Puyat called the industry "an engine for socio-economic growth that provides jobs and income to the country, while preserving Filipino culture and tradition, as well as conservation of the environment."