Tourism planning in archipelagic Philippines: a case review

Tourism is a development option that is pursued in the Philippines from the 1970s until present where it is a pillar of the country's economy. Arrivals from foreign origins are increasing at double digit growth rates while domestic tourism continues to outpace international arrivals. Recent legislation on tourism during the past two years continues to place importance on the industry as an engine of growth. However, such legislation should be viewed against the backdrop of local governance structures, power relations, and stakeholder linkages that include processes on comprehensive land use planning and tourism. The country faces a lack of environmental planners, where tourism planning is a sub-specialization. The current political ecology is that of a national government that relinquished its broad powers in land use and tourism planning to local governments that since 1992 have struggled to keep abreast with the implementation demands of national legislation. These testy relationships in turn create negative consequences to the natural environment well-documented in the experiences of Boracay Island. Tourism planning in the wider environmental planning spectrum in the country is in need of re-evaluating linkages, working relationships, and power relations between the various stakeholders in the land use-tourism planning processes, given the challenges of existing political and administrative frameworks in the national and local governments