More news about how the COVID-19 pandemic in the Philippines is being handled by the public and the government.
The COVID-19 pandemic is the defining recent crisis that forced the Philippine travel and hospitality sectors into survival mode through prolonged quarantines, travel freezes, and near-total loss of demand. Industry leaders contrast that period’s focus on protecting health, preserving businesses, and rapid digitization with the current energy-driven cost and supply-chain pressures.
THE Philippines has been sandwiched in between two international crises in less than a decade. While the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 kept the country in varying states of quarantine for over two years and is still a vivid memory, the US-Middle East conflict since February this year has affected oil routes and has raised energy prices, driving the costs of nearly everything up.
During the pandemic, the hospitality and tourism sectors were particularly affected due to the freeze of global travel as well as the lack of foot traffic because of community quarantines. Now that another crisis of a different nature is upon us, how are these sectors coping? Furthermore, how do these industries prepare and future-proof their businesses in light of other crises that may be on the horizon?
In interviews with BusinessWorld, representatives from these sectors outlined how they understood the differences of navigating through the relatively recent pandemic and the new energy crisis.
“The pandemic was primarily a demand and mobility crisis that required protecting our people and preserving the business, while the current energy-related pressures are a cost and supply chain challenge that require greater operational efficiency, disciplined cost management, menu optimization, and close collaboration with suppliers,” said a representative of The Bistro Group in a Viber message to BusinessWorld. The Bistro Group operates over 200 restaurant branches of 29 brands in the Philippines, with a particular attention to acquiring local franchises of international brands.
“The pandemic required us to prioritize the health and safety of our guests and employees while ensuring the business was well positioned to recover,” said a representative of the Seda hotel group (under Ayala Land Hospitality). The hotel group has 12 properties across the country, from Quezon City to Palawan and Cagayan de Oro. “Today’s environment is different. It is shaped by rising operating costs and greater global uncertainty.”
Meanwhile, Maria Paz Alberto, chairperson of the Pacific Asia Travel Association International Philippines Chapter, as well as president of Ark Travel Express, Inc., a travel and tourism company, discussed the difference between their company’s response during both crises. “Survival came down to pure adaptability. During COVID, we digitized and streamlined overnight. When the energy crisis hit and spiked transport costs, we adapted again: renegotiated supplier terms, cut overhead with smart technology, and maintained constant transparency with partners and clients.”
The Bistro Group told BusinessWorld about the measures they are currently taking amidst the energy crisis. These include working closely with partners to ensure costs are maintained, strengthening value perception through all-day value offers, driving up their delivery business, and strengthening their loyalty program. In the case of the Seda hotels, they said, “Our focus is on improving how we operate through investments in energy efficiency, technology and smarter resource management without compromising the guest experience.”
As for the travel and tourism sector, they’re concentrating on promoting domestic travel. “Promoting domestic travel was never just a plan B — it became a core strategy,” said Ms. Alberto. “By championing decentralized tourism and pushing local heritage and emerging destinations, we’re not only satisfying traveler demand; we’re driving real economic recovery into local communities.”
As we’ve mentioned, however, the point is knowing how much these industries are prepared for future crises, no matter their nature. “Every challenge requires a different response but the principle remains the same and that is building a business that is disciplined, agile and built for the long term,” said the representative from the Seda hotels. “The past few years have reminded us that no organization can prepare for every scenario. What we can prepare for is how we respond. That means strengthening our business plans, investing in sound governance and building an organization that can make thoughtful decisions and adapt quickly as circumstances evolve.”
This is in agreement with The Bistro Group’s own strategy: “The experience reinforced the importance of preparedness. While every crisis is different, we have strengthened our business continuity planning, supply chain resilience, (and) financial discipline to respond more quickly to a range of potential disruptions.”
Ms. Alberto, meanwhile, said, “We don’t wait for a crisis to react; preparedness is built into our daily operations. Whether it’s economic shifts or political instability, our modular action plans rely on three things: real-time ground intelligence, fast rerouting protocols, and strong liquidity buffers.”
Being nimble in such an environment requires foresight, and we asked each how they can predict and prepare for crises. “No one can predict every crisis, but we continuously monitor economic indicators, consumer behavior, and supply chain trends so we can identify risks early and respond proactively,” the Bistro Group representative said. “Preparation is an ongoing process. Our plans are designed to be flexible, and we continuously refine them based on new information and lessons learned, recognizing that adaptability is just as important as planning.”
Meanwhile, while the Seda group can look at broader trends, they leave a good insight: observing guest and customer behavior. “We cannot predict every disruption, but we can become better at recognizing early signals. We closely monitor travel demand, consumer behavior, geopolitical developments and broader economic trends. Equally important is staying connected with our guests and our teams because they often provide the earliest insights into changing conditions,” they said. “Anticipation is ultimately about remaining informed, responsive and ready to adapt.
“Our objective is not to have a perfect playbook but to have clear principles, make timely decisions and continuously learn as circumstances change,” they added.
“You can’t predict the future, but you can read the signals,” said Ms. Alberto. The company monitors macro trends like fuel prices, policy shifts, climate patterns, and as well as traveler sentiment. However, she also relies on technology: “(We) pair industry networks with AI predictive tools to run worst-case scenarios before disruptions occur.”
When we look to the future, we can look back on the past to help solve our problems. However, the past is not exactly the same as our present, let alone the future. While we can look back at historical models and data for solutions, how sure are we that they can accurately predict and prevent crises before they happen, and as they unfold? Most concur that while the past provides valuable lessons, adaptation and agility are key in these faster times.
“Past experience remains valuable because it gives us perspective and discipline. At the same time, every crisis presents new realities,” said the representative from the Seda hotels. “The principles remain constant but the playbook must continue to evolve. Long-term success depends less on repeating what worked before and more on building an organization that can learn, adapt and evolve with changing circumstances.”
“Past experience provides valuable lessons, but today’s environment requires more agile and data-driven decision-making,” said the representative from the Bistro Group. “We adapt tested principles to each new challenge, while remaining responsive to market conditions and consumer behavior.”
“Old models give you the fundamentals: like cash preservation and clear command chains,” said Ms. Alberto. “But relying on them entirely in today’s fast-moving world will fail.
“Modern crises move at digital speed: while we respect the old lessons, our execution relies on real-time data and agility.”
Lessons drawn from the pandemic—such as the need for agility, business continuity planning, and operational resilience—are now being applied to prepare for future disruptions of any kind. Domestic tourism promotion, which became a core recovery strategy during COVID lockdowns, continues to be emphasized as a buffer against external shocks.
Foreign tourist arrivals to the Philippines reached only 4.11 million from January to August 2026, still far below the pre-pandemic peak of 8.2 million recorded in 2019. This shortfall highlights the incomplete recovery of international tourism more than six years after COVID-19 halted global travel.
Filipinos’ appetite for domestic travel is proving to be the anchor of Philippine tourism, filling in the numbers as foreign tourists shy away.
This is obvious at Philippine Tour Operators Association’s (Philtoa) Philippine Travel Mart over the last weekend where heavy thunderstorms did not deter the public from seeking discounts and new places to explore.
Philtoa vice president Mary Ann Ong observed that emerging destinations like Quezon Province and General Santos City in Mindanao have crafted experiential moments in a more personal way that domestic tourists now want.
The Department of Tourism reported that foreign arrivals to the Philippines inched up 3.7 per cent to 4.11 million for the period January-August this year, over the same period in 2025. That’s still far from the pre-pandemic high of 8.2 million in 2019 as well as this year’s goal of seven million.
In stark contrast, domestic trips exceeded 100 million last year. Philippine population is over 100 million.
Philtoa president Maria Lourdes Japson said “Filipinos have not stopped traveling, they have simply become more discerning” and “seeking authentic and meaningful experiences”.
Rajah Tours’ chief, Jojo Clemente, agreed that “domestic travel will always be strong but is really price-sensitive”
“In general, rates must ideally be more affordable considering the economic state of the country at the moment,” he told TTG Asia.
Clemente also said the domestic tourism campaign, Discover more to love the Philippines, recently launched by the Department of Tourism amid slow foreign arrivals, is good “but a campaign is only as good as its components”.
Aileen Clemente, president and CEO of Rajah Travel, shared that “the campaign cannot be done by one entity alone – adoption is really a major part of the game.”
She suggested: “The campaign is louder and also free if it is spread for use by everyone. If there is brand standards and terms of use, that should really be helpful. It has to be a campaign that doesn’t change regularly.”
In contrast, domestic trips surpassed 100 million last year, demonstrating how local travel—first heavily promoted as a survival strategy during pandemic lockdowns—has become the industry’s primary stabilizer. The continued reliance on domestic demand shows that the structural shift toward internal tourism, accelerated by the pandemic, remains essential while foreign visitor numbers lag.
The 14.5 billion pesos in tourism investments registered by TIEZA from 2021 to August 2026 under the CREATE law reflect the gradual recovery of a sector that was devastated by COVID-19 travel bans and lockdowns. The fact that more than 70 percent of these investments (PHP10.37 billion) came in 2025 and the first eight months of 2026 shows accelerating post-pandemic confidence among investors.
The Tourism Infrastructure and Enterprise Zone Authority (TIEZA) has registered PHP14.5 billion in investments across 34 projects from 2021 up to August 2026 under the country’s improved tax law, Corporate Recovery and Tax Incentives for Enterprises (CREATE).
According to the latest TIEZA data dated Sept. 15, these translate to 2,826 new jobs in the tourism sector.
The projects registered in 2025 and through August 2026 alone accounted for PHP10.37 billion, or about 71.5 percent of the total committed investments registered since 2021.
At least 16 projects with PHP5.74 billion in committed investments and 1,039 committed jobs were registered for the entire 2025, while seven additional projects were approved from January to August 2026, representing PHP4.63 billion in committed investments and 522 committed jobs.
By August 2026, TIEZA said committed investments had already reached approximately 80.6 percent of the full-year 2025 level, while committed jobs reached 50.2 percent of the 2025 total.
At the 2026 Philippine Accommodation Pipeline Report launch on Tuesday, TIEZA Assistant Chief Operating Officer Karen Mae Sarinas-Baydo disclosed that at least PHP2.56 billion in additional proposed investments are “currently in the application pipeline.”
Five of these applications, with about PHP1.07 billion in proposed investments and 256 jobs, have target opening dates within 2026, while the remaining three applications represent approximately PHP1.49 billion and 313 jobs.
“A lot of people still think that they have to put up a zone first, so we really need to share that message across that TIEZA can now register standalone tourism enterprises in order for them to avail of the incentives,” she said.
“It allows us to listen directly to the industry, to understand what the tourism enterprises' investors actually need, and what government can do to better support them.”
The creation of nearly 2,900 new tourism jobs during this period marks a tangible rebound from the massive employment losses the industry suffered at the height of the pandemic. By expanding incentives to standalone tourism enterprises rather than requiring full enterprise zones, TIEZA is adapting policy tools first introduced during the recovery phase to sustain longer-term growth after the crisis.
Baguio’s launch of a multisector One Health think tank reflects lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic, which exposed how human, animal, and environmental health are tightly linked in urban settings. The pandemic showed that fragmented responses across agencies left cities vulnerable to cascading crises, prompting local governments to adopt more integrated frameworks.
The City Government of Baguio, through the Baguio City Health Services Office (CHSO), recently launched a multisectoral think tank session aimed at addressing major urban challenges.
The meeting brought together representatives from health, environment, engineering, technology, communications, agriculture, academe, local hospitals and national government agencies.
The session was led by the CHSO and the City Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office (CDRRMO), where the One Health framework was introduced as a strategy to foster cross-sectoral collaboration.
Lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic were highlighted, with recovery requiring coordinated action across multiple sectors rather than relying solely on healthcare workers. Dr. Donnabel Panes of the CHSO noted that overcoming the pandemic demonstrated the necessity of joint efforts, a principle the city now aims to apply to other pressing issues.
To demonstrate the application of One Health, participants mapped out a hypothetical response to Baguio’s rat infestation. The exercise showed how different agencies have distinct responsibilities: one manages sewage infrastructure, another handles drainage maintenance, a third enforces business waste-disposal rules, and a fourth develops real-time tracking systems.
CHSO head Dr. Cecilia Brillantes explained that the collaborative model is essential for managing daily urban issues while preparing for larger threats, including future pandemics, earthquakes and the impacts of climate change.
One Health is a global framework supported by the World Health Organization (WHO), the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). It operates on the premise that human, animal and environmental health are closely linked, requiring unified strategies to manage risks such as zoonotic diseases, food safety and environmental degradation.
Baguio City’s integration of the model aligns with international approaches to local governance and disaster preparedness.
Participants agreed to create a One Health Technical Working Group, which will formalize interagency roles, establish communication protocols and turn the framework into an ongoing operational mechanism for addressing the city’s health and environmental priorities.
By bringing health, environment, disaster risk, engineering, and other sectors together under the One Health approach, Baguio is building the kind of coordinated system that was often missing during the height of COVID-19. The initiative positions the city to better manage future health threats that, like the pandemic, arise at the intersection of urban density, environmental stress, and public health.
