KALIBO, Aklan, Philippines (PIA) — A total of 908,875 foreign and domestic tourists visited Boracay Island last year. This achievement was recorded in Aklan Governor Carlito S. Marquez’s regular monthly “Governor’s Report to the People” program aired over a local radio station here.

Marquez, during said program, noted that the number of visitor arrivals in Boracay last year represented a 16.57 percent increase over 2010’s 779,666 tourist arrivals on the island.

Of said arrivals last year, the highest number were posted in April with 121,301 visitors, followed by May with 98,279 and December, 88,615.

For the rest of the year, arrivals on the famed island holiday destination were recorded thus: January, 69,603; February, 67,534; March, 73,666; June, 68,359; July, 65,431; August, 63,438; September, 52,994; October, 71,175 and November, 67,432.

In his talks with local media here last year, Marquez made a prediction that arrival trends being what they were on a monthly basis, the number of tourist visitors getting into Boracay could reach 900,000.

Currently, the Aklan provincial government is preparing much-needed additional facilities for the convenience of tourists — whether domestic or foreign — as Boracay braces for its 1 million tourist arrivals this year or in 2013.

Arrivals in December, 2011, which registered an increase of 34 percent compared with the 2010 figures, generated for the government well over P1 billion, that is, P1,433,280,164.40, in tourism receipts.

Meanwhile, the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (CAAP) in Kalibo, under Kalibo International Airport (KIA) manager Percy Malonesio, expressed optimism that additional international flights soon to land at the airport here will indubitably boost even more tourist arrivals in the province, particularly in the country’s premier tourist island destination, Boracay.

Malonesio said that this coming March, 2012, Cebu Pacific will have direct flights from Hong Kong to KIA, adding to the current seven daily flights landing on the KIA from South Korea and Taipei, Taiwan.