MANILA, Philippines – Filipinos are closing the year with yet another vacation opportunity — a long weekend from Saturday, December 28, up until New Year’s Day on Wednesday, January 1, 2025. Are you going anywhere?

Travel experience app Klook’s 2024 Travel Pulse study showed that Filipinos spend more on travel now — budgeting P15,000 to P50,000 for international travels, while spending about P15,000 to P30,000 for four to six-day domestic trips. Meanwhile, Trip.com has noted that the last quarter of the year — October, November, December — is the “peak season” for Filipinos, thanks to the holiday breaks.

So, where do Filipinos go? And how do they plan their vacations?

Filipinos enjoy domestic travel

Filipinos are also tourists in their own country. With over 7,000 islands, there are a lot of beaches to visit, mountains for hiking, and trips to historical towns. (READ: Exploring the Philippines in 2024? Here’s your Filipino travel bucket list)

“According to the World Travel and Tourism Council, the Philippines stands as having the largest domestic tourism market in Southeast Asia, with a valuation of over $52.1 billion as of 2023 and it is projected to reach as much as $66.2 billion by the end of this year,” Tourism Secretary Christina Garcia Frasco said in a yearend briefing.

Klook also noted that local travel destinations remain a hit among Filipino users of their app. A previous report showed that Boracay, Baguio, Palawan, Siargao, and Cebu are among the top preferred domestic travel destinations of Filipinos.

Japan among top destinations despite visa requirement

If you’ve checked your online social feeds lately, it would seem that most Filipinos — your friends, celebrities, and local personalities alike — are all in Japan. The Land of the Rising Sun has remained a popular tourist destination, despite the visa requirement for Filipino passport holders.

“Many Filipinos enjoy travelling domestically, but for outbound destinations, 4 of the top 5 offer visa-free travel — Hong Kong, Thailand, Taiwan, and Singapore,” Edmund Ong, senior regional director for Southeast Asia at Trip.com told Rappler.

“Japan is the only destination in the top 5 that does not offer visa-free travel to Filipinos.”

In 2023, over 620,000 Filipino tourists went to Japan for vacation, according to data from the Japan National Tourism Organization. Just before the pandemic hit, Japan relaxed its visa rules in 2018 for Filipino business travelers and cultural and intellectual figures, which include medical doctors, lawyers, and certified public accountants.

The demand has also prompted new flight offerings — for instance, low-cost carrier Cebu Pacific has increased flights to Japan. In October, the airline launched direct flights from Cebu to Osaka, operating four times a week. The airline also announced direct flights to the country’s winter wonderland, Sapporo, beginning January 16.

Trip.com said intra-Asia travel bookings — which jumped 229% in 2024 compared with last year — accounted for most of the transactions made by Filipinos on their platform. Aside from Japan, South Korea is the next top destination for Filipino travelers that require a visa before entry. (READ: Daebak! What you need to know for your ultimate Seoul vacation)

“Trips to Europe are growing in popularity as well, with European trip bookings increasing by 229% year-on-year,” Ong said.

Attractions, theme parks are go-tos

Attractions and theme parks are also among the reasons why some destinations, particularly Hong Kong, are attractive to Filipino travelers.

“The most popular attractions and tours are dominated by those in Hong Kong. These include Hong Kong Disneyland, Ngong Ping 360, Ocean Park, and The Peak Tram,” Ong said.

“Other attractions popular with our Filipino users are Universal Studios Singapore, Universal Studios Japan, and Tokyo DisneySea,” he added. Most Filipinos book tickets for these attractions, as well as other local tours, at least a week before they intend to go.

This is almost the same findings Klook president and co-founder Eric Gnock Fah noted in their app — tourist attractions, such as Universal Studios and teamLab exhibitions, are popular among Filipinos.

There is demand for premium travel

Emirates, one of the airlines with flights from Manila to other parts of Asia, North America, Europe, has also noted an increase in demand for premium travel — notably, first-class suites on airlines.

“We noticed, especially after the pandemic, premium travel demand is high out of the Philippines so we saw that the product that’s missing is the first-class product,” Emirates Philippines country manager Saeed Abdulla Miran said.

“Today, we offer our passengers a seamless connectivity through [a] first-class suite out of Manila to the world.”

According to Miran, Filipinos or those travelling from Manila would usually book a business class seat going to Dubai. And from then on, their connecting flights would be on a first-class seat.

“Once we introduced it, [it] has been doing great and we see numbers are growing and the demand is growing,” Saeed said.

Earlier this year, a luxury travel agency — CITTI Elite, a sister company of Corporate International Travel and Tours — also started operations. According to a TTG Asia report, CITTI Elite aims to serve “high net-worth individuals from the Philippines who know that there is more to explore and to experience [at] an extraordinary destination.”

Concert tourism is on the rise

Taylor Swift skipping the Philippines on her billion-dollar Eras Tour did not stop Filipino Swifties from experiencing the three-hour-long concert. Filipino fans traveled to her Asia-Pacific stops — Singapore, Japan, and Australia — to see their favorite blondie sing her top hits through the years.

Filipinos were the top buyers of Klook’s ticket bundles for Swift’s “The Eras Tour” in Singapore, accounting for 10% to 15% of the tickets sold. The platform noted that sales for other ASEAN countries’ stood only in the single digits. (READ: It’s been a long time coming: PH celebs attend Taylor Swift’s ‘The Eras Tour’ concert)

Trip.com also noticed a similar trend in South Korea’s IU concert in Hong Kong. Trip.com vice president of international markets Boon Sian Chai said tickets for her concert sold “like hotcakes.”

“Music festivals and concerts is going to be something that is going to be up and coming, and it’s very attractive for youngsters,” Chai said. – Rappler.com