More news about how the COVID-19 pandemic in the Philippines is being handled by the public and the government.
Everyone in SEA is laughing at the Philippines which is struggling to lure tourists in the post-pandemic era.
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| https://globalnation.inquirer.net/304244/more-hassle-than-fun-philippines-struggles-to-draw-tourists |
There are many reasons to visit the Philippines.
The pristine lagoons of Palawan, the white beaches of Boracay and the dive sites scattered across the archipelago continue to appeal to tourists.
Yet, as visitors return to Southeast Asia following the Covid-19 pandemic, the Philippines appears to be moving in reverse, suggesting that it lags behind its neighbors in competitiveness.
Tourist arrivals fell to 5.24 million in the first 11 months of 2025, down 2.2 percent from the same period the year before, data from the Department of Tourism (DOT) showed.
Arrivals remained about 37 percent below the pre-pandemic level of 2019, when 8.26 million visitors traveled to the Philippines.
The decline stands out in a region where tourism has largely recovered, with Vietnam notably recording 22 million arrivals, a 22.2 percent increase from pre-Covid-19 levels.
The shortfall reflects more than a cyclical slowdown.
A study by the Philippine Institute for Development Studies found that while tourism activity rebounded after the pandemic, much of the recovery was driven by domestic travel rather than foreign visitors.International arrivals and tourism receipts have lagged behind those of regional peers, pointing to structural constraints that long predate the pandemic.
Those constraints are felt first at the country’s gateways.
Mr Curtis Chin, a senior adviser at the Milken Institute and former US ambassador to the Manila-based Asian Development Bank, said travel in the Philippines too often feels “more hassle than fun” – an ironic inversion of the country’s long-running tourism slogan, “It’s more fun in the Philippines”.
He told The Straits Times that congested airports, fragile connectivity between islands, and uneven transport infrastructure introduce friction that many travelers, especially those with limited time, simply choose to avoid.
“The Philippines is such a great destination. When I advise people visiting the Philippines, I always say, build in some wiggle room in case your plane is late or if the weather interrupts things,” Mr Chin said.
“But too often, people don’t have an extra three days.”
The Philippines is "moving in reverse!" And if you read that article it's not the pandemic that is the problem. It's the Philippines that is the problem.
Royal Air Philippines has suspended all commercial flights because they have not recovered after the pandemic.
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| https://www.philstar.com/business/2026/01/01/2497995/royal-air-suspends-flights-demand-slows-china |
Clark-based carrier Royal Air Philippines is suspending all of its commercial flights starting Jan. 4 as travel demand in its market failed to recover from the pandemic lockdowns.
In a letter dated Dec. 22, 2025, Royal Air CEO Eduardo Novillas told travel agency Juichi International Travel Co. Ltd. that the airline is grounding commercial operations by Jan. 4.
Novillas said the end of the pandemic may have brought optimism to the airline industry, but not to Royal Air, given the geopolitical tensions facing the Philippines.
Citing the pre-pandemic situation, Novillas said Royal Air is reliant on the entry of East Asians into the Philippines, especially from China and South Korea. It is designed to bring guests from these markets to domestic destinations like Bohol, Boracay and Puerto Princesa.
However, Novillas said the geopolitical conflicts, likely between Manila and Beijing, have muted the flight demand in Royal Air’s target market. Right now, the Philippines is fending off Chinese aggression in parts of the West Philippine Sea.
In 2024, President Marcos also banned Philippine offshore gaming operators, a policy that drove off Chinese nationals who benefitted heavily from the industry during the Duterte administration.
“The common explanation from our business partners is that the current interest of their locals to visit the Philippines is significantly low to obscure, and that they will contact Royal Air once the interest becomes healthy and heightened again,” Novillas said.
He committed to refund passengers who would be affected by the operational suspension as also announced on Royal Air’s website.
Royal Air showed signs of partial recovery in 2023 and 2024, when it flew 100,323 and 116,324 international passengers, respectively. However, the carrier ferried just 51,764 in the nine months to September 2025, signaling a slowdown.
The picture is worse on the domestic front, where Royal Air posted a 63 percent dip in passenger traffic to 38,845 in 2024, from 104,473 in 2023. Certainly, it did not help the airline that its larger competitors were expanding fleet and network during that period.
Further, there are no signs of recovery in Chinese demand for Southeast Asian trips as argued by Asian Development Bank economist Jules Hugot in a recent blog.
“Cambodia and the Philippines are seeing some of the biggest shortfalls, with their arrivals from the People’s Republic of China still down 47 percent and 82 percent from pre-pandemic levels in early-2025, respectively,” Hugot said.
The Covid-19 pandemic, an unprecedented global tragedy, is to blame for the spread of another epidemic — online gambling — where highly tech-savvy Filipinos are at the center.
An expert in the gaming sector told Nosy Tarsee that the health contagion was a turning point for speeding up the transfer online of many business activities, including gambling.
The expert discussed how the significant growth of online gaming has played out in the Philippines. Worldwide, it is hard for land-based casinos to maintain a competitive offering for consumers without their own online gaming services, especially in jurisdictions where online gaming is permitted, such as the Philippines.
The expert said the phenomenon will stay for good since “it would be hard now to put the online gaming ‘genie’ back in the bottle,” as Filipinos have become adept at spending time online, including for playing either social or casino games.
A government-imposed ban on the trend would only encourage the gray market, which consumers would be expected to patronize, resulting in significant losses of state revenues.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, social and casino-style games became available on digital payment platforms’ apps, and the Philippines was no exception. The meteoric rise of payment platforms also occurred as people stayed indoors.
The social problem of addiction to online games came as a consequence.
In August this year, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas ordered electronic wallet (e-wallet) services in the country, some of which had aggregated app-based gambling providers via their payment platforms, to delink their payment services from gaming sites.
At one point, the largest e-wallet provider reported 94 million (e-wallet) users out of a population of 115 million, representing a significant base for any online service provider.
The pandemic had shortened the timeframe for gaming to migrate to a typically online format, from “10 to 15 years” to “two or three.”
The expert said the government must adopt self-exclusion protocols to fight gambling addiction.
In the United Kingdom, if you self-exclude on one website, none of the thousands of regulated websites will allow you to play.
Protecting consumers remains the bottom line, even for online casinos.
What began as a simple act of generosity during the pandemic has grown into a thriving business.
In 2020, French native Neven Charpentier and his Filipina wife, Nicole de la Peña, started giving away homemade crepes to frontliners — an effort that would eventually lead to the birth of Crepe Glazik.
“We were sending to hospitals, giving doctors and nurses, even sending crepes to their families for free,” Charpentier told ABS-CBN News.
“There came a time when they already wanted to pay. We were surprised. We were just doing caramel and chocolate crepes from home, trying to help as our donation. But that eventually became our business. We started our menu step by step. I also made recipes in progress. We started very humble. Then we had our first restaurant.”
From a neighborhood spot in Salcedo Village, Makati, where it opened in 2021, Crepe Glazik slowly began to grow. The second branch rose at Uptown Mall in Bonifacio Global City, followed by the opening of its third location over the weekend at Shangri-La Plaza.
“This is also our biggest branch because it’s twice the size of our first two branches,” informed Charpentier.
“We open one branch every two years,” Charpentier added. “Crepe is like our pizza in France. There’s pizza around the world. In France, we don’t bring crepe as much, but we try to also bring it around the world.
“Especially from my region in Brittany. My family really do crepes. From the time I was a kid, I know the taste of crepe. I know how to make it. It was for me something that will always remind me of home.”
Charpentier hails from Quimper, a small city of about 70,000 people in France’s Brittany region, widely regarded as the birthplace of the crepe.
“We can have small variations in doing crepes,” he said. “We can do crepe with egg, without egg, for example. Sometimes it’s crispier. We can do the crust that makes the crepe crispy. We are trying to do something different for the Philippine market.
“We are trying to do the crepe as authentic as it can be. That’s why we get a lot of French customers, including the ambassadors. We really get a mix of customers. We really join Filipinos and French together. So if you go, you will see a table full of French beside Filipino families. That’s my goal. To bring everyone for dessert and enjoy the cultural and culinary taste of Brittany, the Western part of France,” he added.
Charpentier was delighted that many Filipinos know about crepes. “There are people who also try the authentic crepe,” he said. “Maybe might be more premium what we do here [in Crepe Glazik]. At least people here know about crepe. We don’t have the difficulty introducing it to the market.”
Charpentier didn’t go to culinary school; he studied mechanical engineering in college instead. “My culinary background is always family,” he said. “I learned how to make crepes at six years old. At 10, I was already putting the ingredients. In our family, we made crepes every week, on Saturdays and Sundays.”
Crepe Glazik serves authentic French crepes, as well as artisanal home-made gelato. “Everything is home-made,” said Charpentier. “Others were asking why we don’t have Nutella. We don’t have any industrial product. I want to offer home-made products. I keep on saying that, so we always try something new."
Putting that philosophy into practice, Charpentier began making his own chocolate creations with almonds and hazelnuts. “We roasted in our kitchen,” he said. “We ground it and made out own nut paste with caramel. That’s our home-made Nutella, with praline caramel. That’s an authentic one."
Charpentier isn’t afraid to experiment with flavors for the local palate, either. “Putting mango in a crepe? Why not? That’s more authentic than fusion. I don’t hesitate to do combinations for Filipinos. Sweet and salty taste is good for the Filipino market. I used a bit of raw honey from Mindanao. It combines super well. French love it. Filipinos love it also.”
The couple is looking to open a branch in the south, but not this year.
“If you want to stay in business, go slow. We opened three restaurants in four years," he said. “We want to keep control and make sure quality remains the same day after day, year after year. We maintain the same recipe. I don’t want to change it. We also try to improve step by step.”
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