Philippines

Part of the economic impact is because it’s too bloody expensive for a portion of Filipinos to visit and stay locally. Why? To summarize: large demand, low supply. The “natural beauty” destinations can only support so many people.

Social media and FOMO plays a huge part in that people tend to follow what's "trending" on social media and accordingly follow "influencers", so why some places like La Union, Coron, Siargao, Sagada, etc. receive a lot more tourism -- and sometimes in excess -- than others with comparable features and services.

But then tourism can also be a double-edged sword in that no thanks to a weakened yen, the Japanese are feeling the pressure of excess tourism and want to set limits on visitors for specific impacted areas such as Kyoto, and trying to promote tourist destinations that are lesser-known. That encroaching opportunism is already causing negative issues such as overpricing, inefficiency, and poor facilities repelling foreign tourists from making repeat visits.

Thanks for posting this here!

I do agree that the ecosystem should be prioritized over the number of tourists. I do hope that other areas in the country can be improved too, instead of just the “natural beauty” destinations.

Just driving to the countryside and seeing the green rice fields and mountains, you can already see that those can be developed too. Not to make concrete jungles :) , but something local tourists would appreciate too.

I get a good laugh when people say Elyu is overrated or that "it used to be clean". My family is from SFLU and I'm there at least twice a year since the 80s. I've seen it grow from a quaint rural town to the populous spot that it is today rife with influencers and wannabe surfers. It was never clean. The water is bad, the sand is black, and it's dirty — and that's my take from the 90s. I'm surprised it exploded into this must-see destination in the last decade or so. It does have a Robinsons and SM now and all sorts of big city amenities, but that's hardly what I consider a tourist haven.

When I think of a tourist spot, I think of Tambobong or Calaguas. Not sure nga lang if those places have been gentrified already. But remember going there in 2009, and I felt like they were super underrated.