Project: Bring in 50 million foreign tourists to PH

Being a prophet of property boom is not an easy job.

Just ask real estate veteran David Leechiu, who is painfully aware that being the most optimistic guy in the room makes him a magnet for criticisms.

“I just want to assure you guys that we’re not faking it,” he says. “And with the 30 to 40 people who do nothing but research in the office, we’ve tried our best to give you as much information about what’s going on in the market.”

Speaking at the recent PHConnect 2025 forum of hotel owners and executives, the founder/CEO of Leechiu Property Consultants proposed a bold strategy to catapult the Philippines’ annual foreign tourist arrivals to 50 million by 2050.

Coming from a woefully low base of 5.9 million, the 50-million goal looks like a pipe dream for the Philippines.

It’s about half of the foreign tourists that France attracts today, and much more than Thailand’s 35 million annual visitors.

Well, we’ve got 25 years to make it a possibility, Leechiu reckons.

And it’s something that we must strive for to establish a formidable third economic driver, aside from business process outsourcing (BPO) and overseas remittances.

Today, Leechiu says that artificial intelligence (AI) is creating more jobs and filling up office space in the Philippines.

But if the naysayers are correct in warning that AI could soon decimate the BPO industry, Leechiu notes that “the one rocket ship we have is the tourism sector.”

“If they are wrong and AI continues to create jobs for the Philippines, then we will have a very strong third leg to stand on with tourism,” he says.

One of the best-performing property markets

Across the globe, Leechiu says the property market has been under so much stress.

“And yet, the Philippines continues to do quite well. It’s not perfect and it’s got some problems. But all things considered, the Philippine property market is one of the best performing in the world,” he says.

In the office property sector, for instance, he notes that the country has seen 740,000 square meters of new leasing activity in the first half.

It’s been quite a “shocker,” he notes.

“We are quite confident that 2025 will be another year where Philippine office leasing will reach one million square meters of leasing activity in the office sector alone,” he says.

“Very few countries in the world are able to do that. Just like Manny Pacquiao, the office market in the Philippines is punching way above its weight,” he adds.

The same is true with retail property, with the country’s shopping malls now back to their pre-COVID vibrancy.

As such, he notes that capital values have been “stubborn.”

“I say this without jest because so many buyers want to buy distressed assets. Just remember that we have been through five years of strain from COVID and the lockdowns to hyperinflation to hyper interest rates. And yet, many building owners in the Bay Area, in Ortigas Center, in Alabang, are sitting on 50 percent vacancies of big buildings.

“And they continue to turn tenants away,” he notes.

“The market should be at P300 or P250 pesos per square meter [monthly rent] in Ortigas, in the Bay Area. But why are they not? It’s because the landlords are saying, you know what, if I don’t get my rent, the one rent that I want, they can go somewhere else. And that’s why rents are still huge. It’s still at that P500 pesos per square meter, P600 pesos per square meter in most markets.”

Land values, especially at the high end, are still going up.

Forbes Park, for instance, continues to appreciate at 2 to 5 percent a year since COVID, he says.

The same is true with Ayala Alabang and other exclusive villages, where the increase in valuation has been even faster at more than 5 percent a year.

“It would not be possible if people were distressed in the system,” he says.

How about tourism assets?

The Philippines has yet to return to prepandemic levels, partly because populous China has been off the game amid the economic challenges in that market, he says.

This is alongside the multitude of geopolitical and other global issues that have restricted tourism around the world.

“But spending, from what we understand, has been doing quite well to compensate for the lack of arrivals,” he says.

In the last 15 years, Leechiu notes that the amount of capital spending in real estate used to develop tourism has been one of the smallest.

“It’s because it’s one of the most difficult to access. It’s one of the most difficult to read. It is one of the most susceptible to volatility. It’s not as resilient as office market or the residential market,” he says.

But this is going to change, Leechiu says, because in the next six years, the country has 40,000 hotel rooms under construction.

“It is probably the largest injection of hotel rooms we’re ever going to see—in new geographies. It’s going to put the Philippines on the map of many people,” Leechiu says.

And many institutions have been talking about the Philippines likely to be among the world’s top 20 economies by 2050.

Goldman Sachs forecasts 16th place, while BMI and PwC see 18th and 19th place, respectively.

The World Bank, however, has said that in order to hit these numbers, it’s not just the momentum of population growth that we need to sustain.

“We need tourism to prosper, not just prosper but be a significant part of this economy if we are to hit these numbers,” he says.

Phase 1: Building the runway for 50 million tourists

The 50-50 challenge can be overcome by a two-phase strategy, Leechiu says.

The first phase (2026 to 2038) is to “build the runway”—establish world-class benchmarks, catalyze anchor destinations and improve infrastructure like airports, seaports and roads.

The country must also ensure reliable utilities: power, water, waste management and digital access.

He takes a potshot at property owners who disregard waste management and the rules and regulations in their master deed and master plan.

“The hypocrisy involved in enforcing these restrictions is ridiculous. And we have to, for the sake of the planet, for the sake of the country, for the sake of your backyard and my backyard, we have to comply,” he says.

“And we have to build new laws and update the zoning for the country if we are to grow the tourism sector. There is no other way but to grow the tourism sector exponentially,” he says.

Phase 1 includes the development of mature destinations like Bohol, Palawan and Siargao, alongside the rehabilitation of Boracay, Puerto Galera and Taal-Tagaytay areas.

The Tagaytay-Nasugbu-Batangas corridor, he says, can be reimagined as a domestic mass tourism hub.

At the same time, he says Filipinos need to reimagine major cities as tourist hubs (focus areas in culture, business, shopping, nightlife and events) and establish pilot zones for medical tourism, senior care, wellness and education tourism.

One low-hanging fruit that the Philippines has yet to tap, he says, is the LGBTQ+ market, something that Thailand has done extremely well in harnessing.

The yachting market is also something that the archipelago could develop with the right infrastructure, he says.

“Look at the thousands of boats parked in the French Riviera across almost 50 yacht clubs. The biggest reason why the taipans of Hong Kong do not come to the Philippines despite its beauty is because it’s so difficult to come here..and there’s no place to park their super yacht,” he says.

“If you want high spenders, we have to do what it takes to bring them here,” he says.

To attract foreign direct investments (FDI) in tourism, he says the country needs to think about special ownership structures (100 percent foreign ownership of land is not allowed here) as well as government-backed programs.

The first step is to begin reexamining government support programs for tourism-related FDI policies.

Phase 2: Expanding the map

The second phase of Leechiu’s proposed strategy, to be implemented from 2038 to 2050, aims to scale successful models from phase 1, diversify source markets and bring more regions into the tourism economy.

This includes further development of the North Luzon Coastline (from Bataan or Pampanga to Baler, Quezon), the rest of Visayas, as well as Davao and Cagayan de Oro in Mindanao.

After focusing on major cities under phase 1, the next phase is to roll out the successful concepts across the country— catalyze second-tier city capacity and deepen city branding and placemaking across regions.

This also involves the expansion of inter-island connectivity across the archipelago. Upgrade secondary gateways and support seamless land-sea-air movement.

On FDI strategy, he says this will be the time to institutionalize globally competitive tourism investment frameworks. It’s the time to introduce bold reforms to align with top FDI destinations.

In terms of governance and policy reforms, this is the time to scale destination management institutions, formalize tourism zoning, sustainability initiatives and fiscal support nationwide.

“We are like fathers of a very large and poor family…In most cases, the parents will say to the eldest of the children, you’re the ones who have the opportunity to go to college. When you get a job, please don’t get married first, send your younger siblings to school,” Leechiu says.

“And that’s what we have to do, I guess, with the country. We have to go and prioritize which ones can be the silver bullet every 10 years. Thailand has Phuket; Indonesia has Bali. We have a number of destinations that could be world-class coveted destinations,” he says.