Davao City tourist arrivals rise 11 percent to 1.63 million in first nine months

Davao City recorded 1,632,597 tourist arrivals from January to September 2026, an increase of 161,901, or about 11 percent, over the same period last year, according to the City Tourism Operations Office (CTOO), SunStar reported.

CTOO officer-in-charge Willenito Tormis Jr. presented the figures to the City Council during its regular session on Tuesday, Oct. 27, saying they are the city's highest since 2019. He credited the effort to give Dabawenyos and visitors a good experience across the city's four festivals. He also showed the council two citations the city received from the Association of Tourism Officers of the Philippines (Atop) Pearl Awards.

Domestic travellers accounted for the bulk of arrivals at 1,541,884, up 10.7 percent. Foreign visitors grew 14.5 percent to 71,188, while overseas Filipinos rose 27.7 percent to 19,525. August, the month of the Kadayawan Festival, was the busiest at 226,785 visitors. February showed the fastest growth at 22.06 percent, and May the slowest at 3.38 percent. Growth eased slightly in the third quarter, after first-half arrivals topped one million with an 11.7-percent increase.

The CTOO is aiming for 2.5 million arrivals for 2026, up from about 2 million last year. However, Tormis said the office currently projects between 2.2 million and 2.4 million.

Asked how tourists are counted, Tormis said the figures come from monthly reports that hotels and inns must submit under the city's tourism code. The city has about 7,100 hotel rooms. Airport data is not used because it cannot separate visitors from travelling residents, and most Airbnb guests are not counted since only CTOO-accredited units report.

Tormis said some condominiums offer unregistered Airbnb stays, and hotels have complained that these undercut them without paying taxes. The CTOO is working with Councilor Myrna Dalodo-Ortiz on tourism code revisions that would require Airbnbs to report. The city is also building a tourism website with a traveller database.

Second District Councilor Diosdado Angelo Junior Mahipus proposed arrival cards collected at checkpoints, a tourism app, monitoring of long hotel stays with the security cluster, and free airport shuttles for tourists. Councilor Danilo Dayanghirang, who chairs the finance and appropriations committee, asked for a tourism plan for Marilog and Paquibato districts; Tormis said a community-based tourism ordinance is still on second reading. Dayanghirang noted that the tourism budget is much larger than before and said the council expects matching results.