 In the first half of 2010, South Koreans accounted for 25% of all foreign visitors to the Philippines, ahead of the second-place Americans at 19%.As recently as 1992, the annual number of South Korean visitors arriving in the Philippines was a mere 26,000; however, that expanded over seven times to roughly 180,000 by 1997, and then to 303,867 by 2003.Tourism arrivals continued to grow rapidly, to 570,000 in 2006, meaning that South Korean tourists formed a larger group than American tourists for the first time, and then to 650,000 by 2008.