Sicogon issues a microcosm of what ails PH tourism industry

The redevelopment of Sicogon was meant to benefit all stakeholders, a win-win solution to drive tourism and help a local community that did not have access to many opportunities for socio-economic growth. Instead – after just about eight years of operations, Sicogon Island Tourism Estate Corporation (SITEC) placed its Huni and Balay Kogon hotels on the island on temporary closure in January of this year.

This June, SITEC announced that the hotels would remain closed due to “continued operating challenges and low travel demand to the island.”

While it would be easy to put the blame on SITEC for this mess, problems such as these are actually much more complex than posts on social media make them out to be.

SITEC for sure had its own commitments and obligations to the local community, the most recent of which was its formal donation of 63 hectares of residential and agricultural land to Federation of Sicogon Island Farmers and Fisherfolk Association (FESIFFA) members as part of the Compromise and Framework Agreement governing the development on the island.

But it takes two (or more) to tango – and relationships such as these are never just one-sided. The agreements and settlements of disputes on the island were a long-drawn out process in part because some sectors of the community (and their external supporters) did not always come across on agreements that they had previously committed to.

Worse, other parties such as disgruntled landowner Dave Sarrosa created chaos on the island by forcibly taking over Huni Resort on June 25 and taking some of its workers hostage, according to news reports. His video on social media showing himself carrying a high-powered firearm belied the internal family conflict that drove him to act this way – which ultimately resulted in his arrest by law enforcement.

The Sicogon case study is representative of the structural issues that ail the tourism industry in the Philippines – where a lack of a unified system and connected infrastructure thrusts upon the private sector the responsibility of developing the area, providing access such as air and seaports, generating jobs for the local community, while having to fend off local conflicts and politics.

Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS) Senior Research Fellow Dr. John Paolo Rivera pointed to deeper structural challenges that continue to limit the sector’s growth. In his presentation last March of a Philippine Tourism Sectoral Review, he noted that  while “tourism recovery is real… we are not maximizing that growth. The issue here is not just demand. The issue here is systems.”

While revenues have surged to nearly PHP 700 billion in recent years, the Philippines continues to lag behind its ASEAN neighbors in terms of visitor arrivals, spending, and length of stay.

Rivera added that persistent structural gaps reflect deeper bottlenecks, including limited airport capacity, high travel costs, weak inter-island connectivity, and investment friction.

“We are underperforming not because of weak potential, but because of weak systems,” he said. He said further that many of these constraints extend beyond a single agency’s mandate, underscoring the need for a whole-of-government approach.

In his own review of Philippine tourism, Terence Ronson, Founder and Managing Director of Pertlink Limited, cited the need to for an operator with technical know-how to lead a sector that is “too bureaucratic, too political and insufficiently commercial”.

This is in contrast to countries such as Vietnam, where just over 21 million people visited the country in 2025, a 20% jump from the year before. Last year, Vietnam surpassed Thailand as the most popular destination for Chinese tourists, drawing 5.3 million visitors, ahead of the 4.5 million travellers to Thailand. The Vietnamese government is looking to generate 1.1 quadrillion Vietnamese dong, or $41 billion, from tourism this year.

Cities such as Hanoi are also further expanding infrastructure in tourist hotspots, with the government investing over $830 million for a new airport in Phu Quoc. This is partly in preparation for the 2027 APEC Summit to be held on the island.

Ha Van Sieu, Deputy Director of the Vietnam National Tourism Administration, reported that in addition to expanding air connectivity, the industry is proactively implementing many promotional programs in key markets, participating in international tourism fairs and forums, and strengthening cooperation with global partners to expand its promotional network.

Back in the Philippines, the story of Sicogon is simply unfortunate for all involved. The development objectives were meant to help not just investors but the local community as well. Instead of blaming each other for this mess, we must look deeper at the root causes and remove the unecessary barriers to achieiving inclusive growth.

We are no different from our ASEAN peers, we are just as ready for true progress. For starters, we should just stop trying to pull each other down.