Scattered sachets, water bottles and plastic bags cling to the branches of mangroves in the Olango Island Wildlife Sanctuary. This internationally recognised wetland located in Cebu, a bustling tourist province in the Visayas island group of the Philippines, is a crucial habitat for migratory birds. It is a nationally protected area where human settlement and waste dumping are prohibited.
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Months of analysis of government data by Eco-Business show that Cebu is projected to continue producing the highest amount of waste in the country until 2025, potentially overwhelming tourist destinations with both plastic waste and untreated wastewater.
From 2013 to 2022, the Philippines saw a steady rise in tourism, with a total of 45.4 million foreign tourists. Cebu was the archipelago’s most visited province in the past decade with over 35 million tourists. The industry’s peak in 2019 brought in 8.2 million foreign tourists, supported 6 million tourism jobs, and contributed nearly 13 per cent to the national gross domestic product (GDP).
But the 2020 pandemic led to a sharp fall in tourism in the Philippines: foreign arrivals dropped to 1.4 million and every one in five tourism jobs disappeared. Tourism’s GDP contribution saw a 1.9 percentage-point decline from 2013 to 2022.
To achieve sustainable tourism growth after the pandemic, experts and activists called on Cebu and the rest of the Philippines to put the brakes on unregulated mass tourism and the release of plastics and sewerage into local water bodies in favour of a more eco-friendly and inclusive approach to tourism.
