Cebu’s tourism boom goes off the beaten path
Major investments are pushing Cebu’s tourism and commercial activity beyond its familiar and better-known tourism districts, giving travelers more reasons to stay in areas that businesses once overlooked.
Changes in economic activity have gradually redrawn Cebu’s hotel map, with hotel operators following travelers beyond established hubs.
Hotel operating firm Koko Global Hospitality (KGH) is betting that Banawa will be one of them.
KGH and Cebu Grand Meadows Realty Corp. recently opened the 48-room oneTree Plaza Hotel Cebu in Banawa, marking KGH’s first owner’s-brand hotel in the Philippines.
Cebu Grand Meadows owns the property, while KGH runs the hotel under an arrangement that retains oneTree’s original brand.
The oneTree Plaza Hotel Cebu spreads its 48 rooms across a multilevel development built for more than overnight stays, with a lobby-level pool, fifth-floor bar and cafés, ballroom, 31 commercial spaces, function rooms, gym and 105 parking slots.
From the rooftop, guests also get a sweeping 180-degree view of the surrounding area.
“We want to deliver eco-luxury experiences that blend indulgence with responsibility,” Cebu Grand Meadows Realty Corp. CEO Elaine Lim says. “Through sustainable practices, thoughtful design and genuine service, we hope to offer a sanctuary where guests and nature thrive together.”
“Banawa is evolving right now,” Gabriel Bernabe, executive director of KGH in the Philippines, tells the Inquirer. “I think it’s something to look at aside from the usual Cebu Business Park or Mactan area.”
Banawa may be a small barangay, but development around the southern part of the city is bringing hotels into places that previously attracted little accommodation investment.
New anchors are also giving travelers more reasons to head south. NUSTAR Resort Cebu has contributed to turning the South Road Properties—a massive 300-hectare reclamation area in Cebu City—into a major leisure and commercial district.
SM Prime, meanwhile, is slated to inaugurate the SMX Convention Center Seaside Cebu, which will offer 21,000 square meters of leasable event space when it opens this year.
That activity, Bernabe says, is widening the areas where a hotel can find a market.
Southern boom
KGH’s wager comes as the Philippine hotel industry prepares for a major expansion.
Some 45,884 rooms across 213 properties are expected to enter the market through 2032, backed by at least P387 billion in committed investments, according to the Philippine Hotel Pipeline Report 2026 of the Philippine Hotel Owners Association (PHOA) and Leechiu Property Consultants.
Cebu figures prominently in that buildout, with 18 hotels totaling 3,827 rooms in the pipeline. The expansion also reaches other destinations elsewhere in the Visayas and Mindanao, including Oslob, Moalboal, Siargao, Cagayan de Oro and Davao.
“Over the years, Cebu has built a strong brand equity due to the sustained marketing and promotions efforts of its tourism stakeholders,” PHOA executive director Benito Bengzon Jr. says, as quoted in a Philippine News Agency report.
“The time has come for the spotlight to be on Cebu, the rest of the Visayas and Mindanao,” Bengzon adds.
Softer arrivals
Cebu Province recorded 836,595 tourist arrivals in the first half of 2026, down 10.71 percent from 936,939 in the same period a year earlier, Provincial Tourism Office data show.
KGH, however, says its properties have not experienced a comparable drop in occupancy.
“We did not feel it in our hotels,” Bernabe says. “For one reason, I think, is that we’re catering to around 70 percent local market.”
Foreign guests account for about 30 percent of KGH’s Philippines’ customers. Its city properties also serve corporate travelers, people on business trips and guests using Cebu as a stop between destinations.
“Our occupancy has been maintained since 2024,” Bernabe notes. KGH is targeting an occupancy rate of about 75 percent to 80 percent for oneTree Plaza Hotel Cebu.
“There is now a growing market of travelers who are simply passing through Cebu on their way to, say, Siargao,” Bernabe observes.
Some stay only six or 12 hours before catching their next flight, a pattern that reflects Cebu’s growing role as a regional gateway. That transit traffic gives city hotels another source of demand beyond conventional leisure travel.
Bernabe has watched the market change since entering the hotel industry in 1996, when Cebu had far fewer major properties.
“There used to be only Cebu Plaza, Shangri-La,” he recalls, pointing to the later arrival of resorts, hotels and other properties catering to Cebu’s growing tourist market. “Cebu has evolved.”
Airport expansion, he adds, has helped turn the province into a hub for the rest of the Visayas.
Beyond sun and sea
Cebu’s hotel map may be spreading beyond the places travelers already know. The harder task is making sure the experience grows with it.
For Bernabe, that means giving visitors more reasons to stay out later, spend longer and look beyond the usual stops.
He wants a broader tourism pitch beyond “sun and sea” and stronger management of heavily visited attractions.
And once the sun goes down, Bernabe says Cebu still needs more reasons for visitors to keep moving.
“At night, what can I do?” he ponders. “Is it all just bars and restaurants?”
He points to destinations such as Bangkok, where tourists have a wider choice of nighttime activities beyond dining and drinking.
If Cebu wants visitors to venture beyond the places they already know, it will also have to give them more to discover once they get there.
