New Details Emerge on Planned Boracay Integrated Resort in the Philippines
New details have emerged regarding the planned integrated resort (IR) project on the island of Boracay in the Philippines. Alliance Global Group (AGI), the company behind the IR, has confirmed its commitment to investing approximately $300 million in the development.
Boats on a beach on Boracay Island in the Philippines. (Source: Picture-alliance/blickwinkel/McPHOTO)
LISTEN TO THIS ARTICLE:The casino resort, which has been in the works for some time, is set to become AGI's first major expansion project outside of its flagship Newport World Resorts in Manila. It will be developed by AGI's subsidiary, Boracay Newcoast Resorts, Inc (BNRI), and will be located within the 370-acre Boracay Newcoast township owned by another AGI subsidiary, Megaworld.
According to AGI, the Boracay project will be smaller in scale compared to Newport World Resorts, the company's large IR in Manila. As a result, the financial impact on both BNRI and AGI is expected to be more limited. The Group confirmed that it would invest $300 million in line with BNRI's provisional gaming license granted by the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation (PAGCOR).
The announcement follows previous setbacks that shut off access to Boracay as a potential tourist destination. In 2018, former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte ordered the temporary closure of Boracay, one of the country's most popular tourist destinations, due to severe environmental concerns.
The six-month shutdown, which started in April of that year, was aimed at rehabilitating the island, which Duterte described as a "cesspool" due to pollution and overdevelopment. The main issues included improper sewage disposal, unregulated construction, and the degradation of the island's natural resources.
During the closure, government agencies worked to repair the island's infrastructure, clean up polluted waters, and demolish illegal structures that had been built too close to the shore or without proper permits. The move was seen as drastic but necessary to restore Boracay's environmental health and make tourism more sustainable. After the rehabilitation, Boracay reopened with stricter regulations on waste management, building codes, and the number of tourists allowed on the island at a given time.
The Boracay IR isn't the only project in the Philippines AGI and its subsidiaries are working on. In a keynote speech at the IAG Academy Summit held at Newport World Resorts in September, AGI CEO Kevin Tan announced plans for a new $400 million casino resort project located in Megaworld's Mactan Newtown township in Cebu.
The Boracay project is being launched at a time when the Philippines is focused on expanding its tourism infrastructure to accommodate growing visitor numbers. The Department of Tourism (DOT) has released a comprehensive Philippine Hotel Industry Strategic Action Plan (PHISAP) for 2023 to 2028. The plan seeks to address the growing demand for accommodations as the country projects a surge in tourism.
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According to the state-run Philippine News Agency (PNA), the PHISAP outlines the goal of adding over 120,000 new hotel rooms by 2028, with a target of increasing the total number of rooms to 456,000 across the country. This is necessary to meet the projected annual tourist arrivals of 11.5 million by 2028.
Currently, the Philippines has 335,592 rooms across 18,818 hotel establishments nationwide, leaving a shortfall of 120,463 rooms from the target. To meet the growing demand for both domestic and international tourism, the PHISAP calls for a rapid expansion of infrastructure.
The plan emphasizes the need to increase capacity across key tourism destinations and ensure that a wide range of accommodations and experiences are available to travelers. The roadmap highlights regions such as Central Luzon, the Cavite-Laguna-Batangas-Quezon area, the Davao Gulf and Bicol as experiencing particularly high demand for tourism infrastructure. Other regions, including Cotabato-Sarangani, Metro Manila, Rizal, Surigao-Dinagat Islands, and Cagayan de Oro, are also expected to see medium levels of demand.
Despite these positive growth projections, challenges remain. The Department of Tourism has intensified its efforts to attract more tourists from key markets, including South Korea, the US and Japan, as concerns have arisen that the country may fall short of its visitor target for 2024. The DOT has set a goal of 7.7 million tourist arrivals for next year, but as of September 2023, only 4.43 million visitors had been recorded.
According to reports, issues surrounding visa processing, particularly for Chinese tourists, have impacted the country's ability to meet its visitor targets. To address these concerns, the DOT is actively working on improving visa policies and other factors that could boost tourist arrivals in the coming years.
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