British Chamber anticipates more UK tourists in 2025

The British Chamber of Commerce Philippines (BCCP) highlighted the opportunities in the Philippine tourism industry, underscoring its potential to grow as a key regional tourist destination for British travelers in 2025. 

In 2024, the Department of Tourism (DOT) set the year-end target of 7.7 million tourist arrivals and recorded 5.9 million foreign visitors, marking a 9.15% increase from 2023.

The DOT has reported an almost 4% increase of UK Foreign Tourists to the Philippines reaching a total of 160,296 in 2024. 

BCCP Executive Director/Trustee Chris Nelson recognized the potential of the Philippines to showcase more of its tourist attractions, particularly, the Masungi Georeserve, a conservation and geotourism site, also known for being the "ark of biodiversity," with its strategic location not far away from Metro Manila.

Nelson has also reiterated the need to further improve the country’s mobility and connectivity to further attract tourists and encourage economic growth. 

“If you look at tourism, the Philippines have still not yet recovered from its pre-pandemic figures. I think there are opportunities in the UK and I would like to highlight to people when they come to the Philippines, they know of certain areas such as Masungi Georeserve–aside from the more popular ones such as Palawan, Bohol, Boracay and many others, and the fact that the country is making efforts to preserve the ecosystem.” Nelson said in an interview. 

The tourism sector contributes 8.6% of the country’s GDP in 2023 which remains to be below pre-pandemic levels, compared to 12.9% in fiscal year 2019.

Significant developments to encourage more tourists in the country include the passage of the Republic Act 12079 VAT Refund Mechanism for Non-Resident Tourists which allows non-resident tourists  to claim for a VAT refund on locally purchased goods amounting to P3,000 per transaction, marking the Philippines as one of the Southeast Asian countries that mandates VAT refund for tourists. 

The British Chamber also expressed its support for the Department of Tourism's participation in the 2024 World Travel Market (WTM) in London last November. The event emphasized the United Kingdom as the “Philippines' top European visitor source and its ninth-largest overall source market.”