A Prayer for Cebu Tourism in 2026: May Our Guests Return, and May We Be Ready

Editorial Note: This article was researched and written with the assistance of AI tools (Gemini and Claude), with fact-checking, editorial direction, and review.

As 2025 comes to a close, the mood in Cebu isn't quite festive. It's weary. It's angry. It's grieving. And yet, it's prayerful.

If you look at the aggregate numbers, the year was a slump. We missed our arrival targets. We watched as friends booked trips to Vietnam and Thailand, drawn by lower costs and smoother entry points.

And then came the cascading blows.

July: A political earthquake first. In the May 2025 elections, newcomer Pamela Baricuatro defeated five-term Governor Gwendolyn Garcia, ending the Garcia two-decade grip on the Capitol. By June 30, a new administration was in place — inheriting a province already reeling from national scandals.

July-September: The flood control corruption scandal exploded. In his July 28 State of the Nation Address, President Marcos ordered an audit of flood control projects, exposing billions in ghost infrastructure and kickbacks. By August, investigators had identified 15 contractors who cornered over ₱100 billion in projects. Filipinos took to the streets on September 21 demanding accountability. The question on everyone's lips: Where did all that money go?

September 30: Then came the real earthquake. At 9:59 PM, a magnitude 6.9 tremor — the strongest recently recorded in northern Cebu — struck off the coast of Bogo City. Buildings collapsed. Landslides buried homes. At least 79 people died — in Bogo, San Remigio, Medellin, Tabogon, and beyond. Children were crushed by falling debris. In San Remigio, the sports complex roof caved in during a basketball game, killing firefighters and coast guard personnel. Over 1,200 were injured. Nearly 186,000 homes were damaged. Heritage churches crumbled — the Archdiocesan Shrine of Santa Rosa de Lima in Daanbantayan partially collapsed; the centuries-old Saints Peter and Paul Parish on Bantayan Island fell. Over 12,700 aftershocks followed, shaking an already traumatized province for weeks. Tourists canceled. Bookings evaporated. The north was devastated.

November 4: Before the north could recover, Typhoon Tino struck. Kalmaegi dumped more than a month's worth of rain on Cebu in just 24 hours. Rivers overflowed. Flash floods swept through communities across Metro Cebu and beyond. At least 150 Cebuanos died — in Liloan, where the Cotcot River swallowed entire subdivisions; in Compostela, where families in mountain barangays were buried in mud; in Cebu City, Mandaue, Balamban, Danao, and Talisay, where the Mananga River erased whole communities; and in Consolacion, Asturias, and elsewhere. Dozens remain missing. Over 500,000 were displaced.

And then the rage boiled over. Governor Baricuatro posted what every Cebuano was thinking: "₱26 billion of flood control funds for Cebu yet we are flooded to the max." Investigations revealed that many projects were ghost infrastructure — existing only on paper and in someone's pocket. The floods did not just expose failed engineering. They exposed a system of plunder.

It wasn't just nature that killed our kababayans. It was corruption.

For a while, it felt like Cebu was being punished while we watched others move forward.

But as we stand on the threshold of 2026, we refuse to collapse into despair. We feel something more complicated: a cautious hope, yes — but also a righteous impatience. A demand for accountability. A refusal to smile and endure while the powerful feast on what belongs to all of us.

2025 was the year of the "stop." We pray — and we insist — that 2026 will be the year of the "start."

The Weight We've Carried: Four Years of Cascading Crises

Before we can understand where we are going, we must acknowledge where we've been.

For Cebu's small and medium businesses—the resorts, the restaurants, the tour operators—the past four years have been a relentless test of survival. Each time the industry seemed to find its footing, another crisis knocked it down.

March 2020: COVID-19 Arrives. The pandemic didn't just close borders; it shuttered dreams. Hotels that took decades to build sat empty. Restaurant owners watched their savings evaporate. According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the Philippines was still recovering from the economic fallout when the next disaster struck.

December 16, 2021: Super Typhoon Odette (Rai). Just as businesses were cautiously reopening, Odette made landfall in Carcar, Cebu, with winds reaching 195 km/h and gusts of 260 km/h. It was the strongest typhoon to hit the Philippines that year. The damage was catastrophic: more than 3.6 million Cebuanos affected and at least 100 lives lost in Cebu alone. The Cebu Provincial Tourism Office reported ₱112.04 million in tourism infrastructure damage, with 212 tourism properties affected. Kawasan Falls, the dive resorts of the southwest coast, Oslob's whale shark boats—all devastated. For small resort owners, 50-90% of their properties were damaged, "taking away many jobs from the tourism sector."

February 2022: The Russia-Ukraine War. Global oil prices soared. In April 2022, Philippine inflation jumped to 4%, with diesel prices up 58% and gasoline up 36.7%. By October 2022, inflation hit 7.7%—the highest in nearly 14 years—driven by the war's disruption of global supply chains. For small businesses already bleeding from the pandemic and the typhoon, the price shocks were devastating. The cost of electricity shot up 18%. LPG surged 26.5%. Food costs, transportation, utilities—everything climbed while revenues stayed flat.

2020-2025: The Wage Squeeze. For business owners struggling to survive, the mandated minimum wage increases—necessary as they were for workers—added another layer of pressure. In Central Visayas, the daily minimum wage for Class A areas (Expanded Metro Cebu) rose from ₱404 (January 2020) to ₱435 (June 2022), then ₱468 (October 2023), ₱501 (October 2024), and ₱540 (October 2025). That's a cumulative increase of over 33% in under six years. For a small restaurant with 10 staff, the math is brutal: an additional ₱40,000+ per month in labor costs alone—before accounting for the mandated increases in SSS, PhilHealth, and Pag-IBIG contributions.

The Cruel Equation. When costs rise and sales dwindle, the math becomes a formula for defeat and despair. According to a World Bank/IFC study, the Philippines has the highest MSME funding gap in the world—a demand for credit of $221 billion versus a formal supply of only $15 billion. Small businesses often face loan programs that charge high interest rates and require substantial collateral—with some lenders demanding 100% cash or property coverage, and take 3-6 months to process. As of September 2023, bank lending to micro and small enterprises stood at a mere 1.80% of total portfolios—well below the 8% mandated by law. Most big banks simply pay the penalty and move on.

For many, the choice has been stark: borrow at usurious rates, sell assets, or close. The businesses that remain standing today are the survivors of a marathon of pain.

The Betrayal That Cuts Deepest: When Government Preys Instead of Protects

As if cascading crises weren't enough, 2025 brought a devastating revelation: the very institutions meant to protect us had been preying on us all along.

The flood control corruption scandal—exposed in President Marcos Jr.'s July 2025 State of the Nation Address—laid bare a system of betrayal that staggers the imagination. According to then Finance Secretary Ralph Recto, the Philippines lost an estimated ₱42.3–118.5 billion ($713 million–$2 billion) to flood control corruption from 2023 to 2025. Marcos vetoed ₱16.7 billion worth of flood control projects in the 2025 budget alone, citing inconsistency with administration priorities and questionable implementation-readiness—raising questions about why billions had been allocated for projects that weren't ready or properly vetted.

The Ombudsman has frozen ₱13 billion in assets linked to the scandal—280 bank accounts, luxury vehicles, private jets, and real properties accumulated by contractors and officials who were supposed to be building walls to protect communities from floods. Instead, they built walls of wealth around themselves. The names read like a rogues' gallery: district engineers, contractors, even legislators. In August 2025, a DPWH district engineer was arrested for attempting to bribe a congressman with ₱3.1 million to stop an investigation into alleged irregularities.

For small business owners not just in flood-prone tourism areas, the scandal is personal. We rebuilt after Odette with our own money while billions in "flood control" funds disappeared into ghost projects. In Davao Occidental, investigators found a ₱96.5-million flood control project that was never implemented—the final billing, completion certificates, and inspection reports were all falsified. The project existed only on paper and in someone's pocket.

And just as the flood control scandal dominated headlines, another betrayal emerged. Senator Erwin Tulfo alleged that Bureau of Internal Revenue officials have been "weaponizing" Letters of Authority (LOA) to extort businesses—both large and small. Senator JV Ejercito called it "a tool for corruption," noting that for many SMEs, the LOA "is not an audit notice. It's an implicit threat."

According to Ejercito, unscrupulous BIR examiners have been skimming as much as 70 percent of taxes collected through LOAs—even worse than the 30% allegedly taken in the flood control racket. Even foreign investors and ambassadors have complained of harassment, prompting the European and American Chambers of Commerce to raise alarms. "Whether your business is big or small, you can be targeted... The LOA is being used for harassment, coercion, and forced negotiation," Senator Tulfo warned during Senate budget deliberations.

For tourism enterprises already bleeding from four years of crises, being preyed upon by the very agencies meant to serve them is the cruelest cut of all.

The newly appointed Finance Secretary and BIR Commissioner have suspended all field audits and ordered reforms. Business groups have welcomed the move, calling it "crucial and immediate relief." But trust, once shattered, is not easily rebuilt.

We enter 2026 not just hoping for more tourists—we're hoping for a government that remembers its purpose is to serve, not to steal.

The Backbone That Saved Us: 7.7 Million Strong

Now let's thank who showed up when we needed them most.

According to data from the Hotel, Resort and Restaurant Association of Cebu (HRRAC), while international markets wobbled, our domestic brothers and sisters held the line. Mactan-Cebu International Airport logged more than 7.7 million domestic arrivals in 2025, while international arrivals reached over 2.6 million year-to-date—about 2 percent higher than last year.

When the Korean market dipped early in the year—with arrivals dropping to 243,426 in the first half compared to 436,871 in the same period of 2024—it was the locals who filled the rooms. Domestic tourism, which dipped sharply following earthquakes and flooding towards the end of the year, emerged as a bright spot. According to HRRAC president Mia Singson-Leon, local travelers cushioned the impact of softer foreign demand.

For 2026, our hope starts with gratitude for them.

A Silver Lining: Shifting Market Mix and Increased Budgets

The Korean slump has a silver lining: market diversification. Department of Tourism (DOT-7) data reveals that Japanese arrivals to Cebu reached 127,465 from January to June 2025, already surpassing the full-year 2024 total of 103,486—a 23 percent increase year-on-year. Taiwanese arrivals also posted gains, hitting 28,881 in the first half versus 28,587 for all of 2024.

DOT-7 regional director Judy Gabato explains: "Cebu is increasingly on the radar of Japanese and Taiwanese travelers, and we are positioning the province not only as a leisure hub but also as a center for culture, education, and international events."

The growing number of English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) schools in Cebu has attracted more Japanese visitors, alongside traditional golf and scuba diving enthusiasts. We are learning not to put all our eggs in one basket.

But diversification alone won't close the gap with our neighbors. For years, the Philippines has been fighting with one hand tied behind its back. Congress slashed the DOT's promotions budget by 83 percent—from ₱1.2 billion pre-pandemic to just ₱200 million in 2024, then slashed it again to a mere ₱100 million in 2025. Meanwhile, our ASEAN competitors have been spending multiples more: Thailand at $168 million, Indonesia at $234 million, Malaysia at $263 million. As Tourism Secretary Christina Frasco bluntly put it: "You cannot expect a full recovery to 100 percent by investing only 100 to 200 million pesos and expect the same numbers."

Our prayer is that this finally changes. The Senate has restored ₱1 billion for tourism promotions in 2026—a tenfold increase from this year's allocation. Senator Loren Legarda, who sponsored the DOT budget, noted that despite the Philippines generating the highest yield per tourist in the region, our marketing budget has lagged far behind. Senator JV Ejercito called tourism "the lowest-hanging fruit right now" for economic growth. We pray this restored funding translates into campaigns that remind the world why they fell in love with our islands in the first place—and that Cebu gets its fair share.

The Industry Reality Check: It's Not Just Typhoons

We must also listen to the "alarm bells" rung by our business leaders.

In early December, four major chambers—the Cebu Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCCI), Mandaue Chamber of Commerce and Industry (MCCI), Talisay Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and the Lapu-Lapu Chamber of Commerce—met to align priorities. MCCI President Mark Ynoc described 2025 as "shaky and challenging," marked by declining foreign investment and soft tourism numbers. He emphasized that chambers are consolidating to form a unified private sector capable of protecting Cebu's growth pillars.

CCCI President Jay Yuvallos stressed that tourism cannot be treated as a mere "marketing" problem. "Ecosystems must be deliberate and intentional," he said, citing Thailand's supplier-acceleration programs and Malaysia's SME clustering as benchmarks. Cebu must design programs to help small and medium enterprises enter supplier networks, strengthening the full value chain—from fisherfolk to restaurants to logistics.

The hope for 2026 is that we stop treating tourism as a "marketing" problem and start treating it as a "supply chain" problem.

The "Deadline" in Mactan: MICE as the New Engine

The catalyst for fixing these structural gaps is already on the calendar: the 45th ASEAN Tourism Forum (ATF) 2026, to be held in Mactan, Cebu from January 27 to February 4, 2026. Cebu's hosting of this flagship event—bringing together ASEAN tourism ministers, 350+ international buyers, and global media—forces us to fix the things we should have fixed years ago.

And 2026 will see three game-changing venues open their doors. Mactan Expo Center, Megaworld's ₱1.5 billion, nearly one-hectare MICE facility that can host up to 2,600 people, is set for completion by end of 2025—just in time for ATF. Following close behind, SM Seaside Arena, a 16,000-seat venue, opens by February or March 2026 for international concerts and major sporting events. And SMX Convention Center Seaside Cebu — a ₱5.3 billion investment opening in Q3 2026 — will offer over 40,000 square meters of gross floor area with 21,000 square meters of leasable event space, the largest SMX venue in the Philippines, capable of hosting up to 18,000 delegates.

As Walid Wafik, Senior Vice President for Operations at SM Hotels and Conventions Corp., declared: "Soon, Cebuanos and visiting delegates alike will no longer need to fly to Manila for major exhibitions, summits, or concerts—the experience will be right here."

Our prayer is that these fixes last longer than the summits and that the smooth roads for the delegates remain smooth for the jeepney drivers long after the guests leave.

But we must say this plainly: Cebu is not only Mactan. The new arenas and convention centers are welcome, but they serve a sliver of the province. What about the heritage churches of the north still damaged by the September earthquake? What about the dive sites of the southwest that put Cebu on the global map? What about our island and inland destinations—where power instability and unreliable water supply still hamper daily life, where roads to waterfalls crumble every rainy season, where the infrastructure gap between Metro Cebu and the provinces grows wider each year? The DOT has acknowledged these challenges: traffic congestion, utility issues, and the need for billions more in tourism road projects. We cannot build a world-class tourism industry on convention centers alone.

If 2026 is truly the year of the start, let it start everywhere — not just in Mactan.

The Counter-Attack: "Visit Cebu" & New Routes

We are also finally fighting back against the "cheaper" neighbors.

On December 12, 2025, the Department of Tourism, Cebu Pacific, and HRRAC signed a Memorandum of Understanding launching the "Visit Cebu" campaign—an initiative offering flight incentives, hotel vouchers, and complimentary one-night stays to international travelers from six priority markets: Korea, Japan, Thailand, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Vietnam.

"This campaign is meant to reinvigorate tourism here in Cebu and to communicate that Cebu continues to be open for tourism," said Tourism Secretary Christina Frasco.

And instead of just losing tourists to Vietnam, we are now welcoming them. December 2025 marked a milestone: Mactan-Cebu International Airport launched direct flights to three new international destinations:

• Cebu–Kuala Lumpur (Firefly Airlines, December 2) – 5x weekly
• Cebu–Hanoi (Vietnam Airlines, December 3) – 3x weekly, marking the first-ever nonstop connection between Cebu and Vietnam
• Cebu–Brisbane (Jetstar Airways, December 3) – 3x weekly, adding over 37,000 low-fare seats annually

With seven new international routes in 2025 alone—including Osaka, Bangkok, Macau, Ho Chi Minh City, Cheongju, and Guam—MCIA now serves 19 international destinations. We are diversifying.

A Hope for the "Real" Cebu

Our deepest hope for 2026, however, is not about the new arenas.

Our prayer is for the North, still healing from the September 30 earthquake. We grieve for the many who died. And with over 12,700 aftershocks later, the trauma lingers. The 159 damaged tourism establishments and 4,000 affected tourism workers are still struggling to rebuild.

Our prayer is for the families still grieving from Tino — the souls lost in Liloan when the Cotcot River became a killer; those in Compostela, many from mountain barangays that rescuers couldn't reach for days; the lives taken in Cebu City, Mandaue, Balamban, Danao, and Talisay, where the Mananga River destroyed everything in its path; and those in Consolacion, Asturias, and other towns still counting their dead. We grieve with the mother in Compostela who buried her husband, three children, father, nephew, and aunt in a single week. We grieve with the communities holding placards on the roadside, begging for food and water, wondering why ₱26 billion in flood control funds couldn't save their loved ones.

Our prayer is for the South, where small resort owners along the southeastern and southwestern coasts have weathered a difficult year. May the Visit Cebu campaign bring renewed hope and visitors to their shores.

Our prayer is for the ordinary Cebuano — the call center agent commuting three hours a day on roads that flood every rainy season; the construction worker whose wages rose on paper but whose rent rose faster; the sari-sari store owner watching prices climb while customers buy less; the jeepney driver caught between modernization mandates and daily survival; the mother stretching a kilo of rice to feed five. They don't make headlines. They don't get bailouts. But they are Cebu.

Our prayer is one of gratitude — for the 7.7 million kababayans from across the Philippines who visited Cebu this year. When international markets softened and bookings slowed, it was our own countrymen who filled the rooms, the tables, and the tour boats. They kept our people employed. They chose us. Daghang salamat.

Our prayer is for the small business owners — the ones who took out loans at 3% monthly interest to rebuild after Odette, who watched their costs rise 33% while their revenues stayed flat, who somehow kept their staff employed through years of cascading crises, and who now face the bitter realization that their own government agencies have been more interested in extracting from them than protecting them. They are the true heroes of Cebu tourism.

The Year of the Start

We admit 2025 was hard. We admit we face challenges from high domestic airfares to traffic congestion, from wage pressures to working capital constraints, from corrupt flood control projects to weaponized tax audits.

But we are tired of being "resilient."

We are tired of being told to endure. We are tired of rebuilding what typhoons destroy, only to watch billions meant for flood control disappear into mansions and luxury cars. We are tired of burying our dead and then discovering that the money meant to protect them was stolen. We are tired of being shaken down by the very agencies meant to serve us. We are tired of smiling through the pain while those in power treat public funds as personal ATMs.

And yet, even as we grieve and rage, we have not stopped working.

The private sector has not waited for rescue. Tour operators are redesigning packages. Resort owners are reopening despite unrepaired roads. Small businesses are keeping their doors open and their staff employed—not because times are good, but because giving up is not an option.

This is what the private sector has been doing while waiting for government to do its part.

So our prayer for 2026 is not just hopeful, it is demanding.

We demand that the scandals be prosecuted to the fullest, not swept under the rug after the headlines fade. We demand that public service mean service — not self-enrichment. We demand that the roads to our provinces be fixed with the same urgency as the roads to the convention centers. We demand that the taxes we pay come back to us as infrastructure, not as somebody's fleet of Land Cruisers. We demand justice for the Cebuanos who died in Tino's floods — deaths that might have been prevented if the billions allocated for flood control had actually been spent on flood control.

But we also demand to be seen—not as supplicants begging for relief, but as partners who have kept this industry alive.

We have carried this economy on our backs through four years of hell. We have absorbed the costs, retained the jobs, and rebuilt after every disaster. We have done our part. We have earned the right to demand that government do theirs.

We enter 2026 not with arrogance, but with a new resolve: we will no longer accept crumbs from a table we helped build. We will hold our leaders accountable. We will continue to organize, to advocate, and to build, because that is what we have always done. And we will keep going not because we are endlessly resilient, but because this is our home, and we refuse to abandon it to thieves and storms.

Our prayer is that 2026 will be the year government finally sees us. Not as tax bases to be harvested. Not as photo opportunities after disasters. But as the backbone of an industry that employs millions, feeds families, and keeps Cebu's name shining on the world stage—even when the lights go out.

There is no warmth like a Cebuano welcome. There is no sunset like a Cebu sunset. And God willing, 2026 will be the year the world comes back to see it.

References

Click to expand all 44 references

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Inflation and Price Shocks

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SME Financing Gap

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Cebu Tourism 2025

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