BMI expects Philippine tourism to grow further

BMI, a unit of Fitch Solutions, expects international visitor arrivals in the Philippines to reach a record 9.7 million by 2028.

BMI said in a report that the tourist arrival growth in the Philippines is expected to average 14.8% annually until 2028.

It said the Philippine tourism sector remains in a post-pandemic recovery phase this year.

Data from the Department of Tourism (DoT) show that visitor arrivals in the first 10 months of 2024 grew 10% to 4.5 million from 4.1 million a year ago. BMI said this represents just 66.5% of tourist arrivals in the comparable period in 2019.

"With 10 months of tourist arrival data published for 2024, we maintain our view that arrivals over the year will fall short of a full pandemic recovery," it said.

BMI expects arrivals to go up by 19.5% to 6 million this year, representing only 73% of the record 8.2 million arrivals in 2019.

The DoT expects 7.7 million arrivals in 2024.

"Our 2025 forecast for the Philippines’ tourist arrivals is growth of 38.4% year on year to 8.3 million arrivals which will mark a full recovery as they reach 101.1% of the 2019 arrivals," BMI said.