The country’s aggressive marketing strategy to promote the Philippines as business and leisure destinations paid off as the Bureau of Immigration (BI) on Thursday reported an 11 percent increase in the number of foreigners who arrived in the country during the first four months of the year.

Statistics submitted to Commissioner Marcelino Libanan by immigration officials from the different international airports and seaports showed that a total of 1.081,794 million foreign passengers arrived from January to April, compared to the 982,432 who came in the same period last year.

Libanan welcomed the reports as a positive development for the country’s tourism industry and to the economy even as he promised to continually pursue the BI’s modernization program at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) and other subports nationwide.

“We will continue to improve our services at the airports so that foreigners who visit our country are conveniently processed upon their arrival and do not encounter any inconveniences at our immigration counters,” he said.

BI-Immigration Regulation Division (IRD) Chief Alberto Braganza disclosed that the increase in foreigner arrivals is a big improvement compared to last year when the number of foreign visitors dropped significantly due to the global financial crisis.

Braganza said that the highest volume of foreigners was registered in March with the arrival of 329,470 passengers, up by 12 percent over those who came a year ago.

He added that it was only in February that foreigner arrivals registered a slight decline of five percent compared to those who arrived in the same month in 2009.

April’s arrival volume of 309,693 and January’s 252,959 was higher by four-percent and five-percent, respectively, than the figures that were registered in the same months last year.