On World Tourism Day, the Department of Tourism said it would focus on investment and infrastructure over visitor counts. The newest global tourism ranking shows how far the country has to go.
In August, ElysPlanet argued that the Philippines was losing the tourism war. The tourism department’s new ambassadors and its domestic deals campaign were smart moves, the piece said, but they did nothing about the gap in international arrivals between the Philippines and neighbors like Malaysia and Thailand. Closing that gap, it argued, would take airports with room to grow and a ferry system that connects to rail.
On September 27, World Tourism Day, Tourism Secretary Dita Angara-Mathay laid out a strategy that addresses much of that. The Department of Tourism (DOT), she said, is moving its focus from counting visitor arrivals to attracting investment, improving airports and gateways, adding air routes and creating jobs. She said she wants the DOT known as an agency “proactively taking the lead in tourism readiness.”
Why Arrival Counts Aren’t Enough
Arrival counts record how many visitors came, but not how long they stayed or how much they spent. The DOT, citing Philippine Statistics Authority data, said tourism accounted for 8.1% of the economy in 2025. It generated ₱2.27 trillion in Tourism Direct Gross Value Added, the share of national output produced directly by tourism, and supported 7.70 million jobs.
Angara-Mathay said the goal is to draw investors while giving tourists reasons to stay longer, spend more and come back. The department’s World Tourism Day message also noted that the Philippines has one of the smallest tourism marketing budgets in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), while its high-value visitors stay about five days on average.
Air connectivity is part of the same push. From January 1 to May 19, the country recorded 7.78 million international air seats on direct inbound flights, up 8.31% from a year earlier. ElysPlanet has tracked the new direct routes into Manila as they’ve been announced.
Japan Goes First
The shift comes with four new programs, covering tourism investment accountability, investment readiness, tourism intelligence, and strategic investor engagement. Japan is the first test market. The DOT is working with Marubeni, one of Japan’s large general trading companies, on a specialty medical clinic, and with Sojitz, another trading house, on telecommunications infrastructure in underserved tourist destinations. The department plans to repeat the model in other priority markets.
A clinic within reach and a working phone signal matter to travelers deciding whether to book several nights somewhere remote. Tourism campaigns rarely show that kind of groundwork.
The WEF Ranking
Two days before the World Tourism Day announcement, the World Economic Forum (WEF) released its Travel & Tourism Development Index 2026, which ranks 110 economies on their readiness to develop tourism. The Philippines climbed eight places to 57th, with a score of 4.08 out of seven. That is a 5.5% improvement on its 2024 score and a 12-place rise from 69th in 2019.
In Southeast Asia, the country is still sixth of the seven economies ranked. Singapore placed 13th, Indonesia 23rd, Malaysia 26th, Thailand 38th and Vietnam 52nd. Only Laos, at 75th, finished lower. The index says closing the regional gap depends on investment in infrastructure, workforce skills, visitor services and capital, a list close to the one the DOT gave on World Tourism Day. Japan topped the global ranking.
What’s Already Moving
The Philippines now has nine hotels with Michelin Keys, up from five, including its first two-Key properties, Raffles Makati and El Nido Resorts Lagen Island.
Arrivals are still part of the picture. Earlier in September, the DOT launched a public dashboard that tracks arrivals, outbound travel, tourism’s contribution to the economy and employment, with downloadable data for researchers and journalists.
What We Don’t Know Yet
The DOT hasn’t attached peso amounts or timelines to the Japan projects, and it hasn’t said which destinations the Sojitz telecommunications work will reach. It also hasn’t named the next priority markets, or said how the investment-accountability program will report its results.
ASEAN tourism ministers meet in the Philippines in the days after World Tourism Day, and the country hosts the 49th ASEAN Leaders’ Summit in November. Both give the DOT a chance to announce signed projects with figures attached.