HOTELIERS are facing an uphill challenge to fill rooms in the Philippines, as tourist arrival numbers are not rising quickly enough to match the supply of new hotels sprouting up across the country.
According to information revealed by Horwath HTL at the Philippines Hotel Seminar 2015 last week, the destination has added 14,389 new hotel rooms as of 1H2015, a majority of which are in metro Manila.
Thailand has also seen a similar increase in room numbers, but the Philippines’s approximately five million visitors yearly is a far cry from Thailand’s more than 20 million annual visitors, said Mina Li, senior consultant at Horwath HTL.
Chinese arrivals only account for 400,000 pax, or eight per cent of Philippine arrivals, compared with five million pax, or 19 per cent, for Thailand.
Tourist arrivals in the Philippines is “way below” its potential, Li remarked. She added that the destination is not tapping enough on the China market, as Chinese travellers are not visiting other parts of the country beyond Boracay.
Bill Barnett, managing director at C9 Hotelworks, said it is “a mistake to think that casino hotels would be the saviour of tourism”, alluding to the new integrated resorts in Manila and two upcoming properties over the next few years.
Barnett cautions the Philippines from becoming “overdependent on gaming”, pointing out that integrated resorts in Singapore and Macau were conceived to enhance the tourism infrastructure too.
