Philippines tourism to recover to pre-pandemic levels in 2025, analysts say

Maybank Securities expects tourism to reach the levels seen in 2019.

The Philippines.- Analysts at Maybank Securities have forecast that tourism in the Philippines could fully recover to 2019 pre-pandemic levels in 2025. Analyst Ronalyn Joyce Lalimo said ongoing infrastructure improvements, including airport upgrades, could also help boost tourism from markets like South Korea, the United States, Japan, and Australia, which have strong historical and cultural connections with the Philippines.

Maybank highlighted e-visa services for Chinese and Indian visitors. Meanwhile, 43 projects underway under the Build Better More programme include five airport upgrades, including Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) and the New Manila International Airport. These will enhance capacity, with the new NAIA expected to handle 62 million passengers annually, up from 35 million.

Meanwhile, a new value-added tax (VAT) refund programme for foreign visitors, allowing refunds on purchases over PHP3,000 at approved stores, is likely to increase tourism spending.

The Department of Tourism (DOT) reported that the Philippines received over 5.35 million tourist arrivals in the first eleven months of the year, including 432,439 entries from overseas Filipinos. For the full year, the Philippines aims to attract 7.7 million arrivals. However, Maybank noted fewer arrivals from China, which accounted for 21.2 per cent of arrivals in 2019 but only 5.6 per cent in the first eleven months of 2024.

South Korea remains the biggest source market, accounting for 26.8 per cent of arrivals (1.44m). The United States was the second-biggest source market with 839,635 arrivals (15.6 per cent). There were 352,630 arrivals from Japan.