MANILA, May 5 (Xinhua) -- Around 2.2 million foreign tourists visited the Philippines in the first quarter of 2019, increasing more than 7 percent, Philippine Tourism Secretary Bernadette Romulo-Puyat said this weekend, expressing confidence that this archipelagic country will hit another record-high number of tourists from abroad for the entire 2019.

According to the Philippine media, on the sidelines of the Asian Development Bank's 52nd annual meeting in Fiji, Romulo-Puyat told the Philippine reporters on Saturday that foreign visitors arrivals from January to March already exceeded the 2.05 million during the first quarter of 2018.

In March alone, she said the Department of Tourism (DOT) has recorded foreign arrivals increased by 11.1 percent to 714,309 from 642,757 a year ago.

South Korea remained the top source of foreign tourists that flocked the Philippines in the first quarter of this year, followed by China, the United States, Japan and Australia.

The tourism secretary said direct flights from countries where foreign tourists come from helped boost tourist arrivals.

Romulo-Puyat said the first quarter figures showed that the Philippines is "on track" to hit the DOT's 8.2 million target for 2019.

In 2018, a total of 7.1 million foreign tourists visited the Philippines, tallying the highest number in the country's tourism industry.