THE Philippines’s participation in the World Expo 2025 in Osaka is expected to enhance the country’s profile in Japan and expose it to a wider international audience, as it targets the arrival of 8.4 million foreign tourists next year. In a Viber message to the BusinessMirror, Tourism Promotions Board (TPB) Chief Operating Officer Maria Margarita Montemayor Nograles, said, “About 28 million people are projected to visit the World Expo 2025.
So, the Philippines has the opportunity to boost not just arrivals from Japan, but encourage other nationalities to come to the Philippines, see our beautiful sights, and experience our legendary Filipino hospitality.” The TPB, the marketing arm of the Department of Tourism (DOT), recently unveiled the design for the Philippine Pavilion for the world expo in separate events in Manila and Osaka. The DOT sits as the Commissioner-General of the Philippine Organizing Committee (POC) for the world expo, with the TPB serving as the secretariat.
The World Expo 2025 Osaka will run from April 13 to October 13, 2025. Japan is a key tourism market for the Philippines. In 2019, prior to the pandemic, the Philippines received 682,788 Japanese tourists, who accounted for some 8.
3 percent of the 8.3 million total inbound travelers that year, a historic high. Of the 4.
87 million outbound Japanese travelers from January to May in 2024, the Philippines received just 158,461, data from the Japan Tourism Bureau (JTB) showed. This year, Japanese tourists prefer to travel to South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Thailand, and Macau. ACCORDING to a JTB Travel Trends report, the number of outbound Japanese travelers could reach 14.
5 million this year, some 72 percent of the level in 2019. The slow rebound in outbound tourism was attributed to “inflation, the cheaper yen, and ongoing uncertainty in situations and certain areas.” For these reasons, JTB said, “the number [of outbound travelers] is not expected to recover to its pre-Covid level at least until 2025.
” JTB also estimated total outbound travel expenditure by Japanese at Y4,960 billion (P1,979.25 billion) this year, slightly exceeding the 2019 level, or 104 percent. “The average spend per person is expected to exceed the previous year and the highest since 2000,” it said.
Under the DOT’s National Tourism Development Program 2023-2028, inbound tourists are projected to reach 8.4 million in 2025, up 9 percent from the 7.7 million targeted this year.
In a news statement, Tourism Secretary Christina Garcia Frasco said, “Japan has been a steadfast partner of the Philippines, with bilateral relations deeply rooted in nearly seven decades of diplomatic and economic cooperation on various fronts, including trade and investment. Our people-to-people relations have also been long standing, with Japan consistently ranking as one of our top tourist markets, providing our third largest source of international visitors to the Philippines in 2023, and with the Philippines also ranking as one of Japan’s top source markets.” SHE added, “The Memorandum of Cooperation in Tourism, signed last year between our countries, has fortified these relations as does our participation in this Expo which shall expand our ties in tourism, trade, and investment, even as we look forward to expanding the same ties with the rest of the world as nations and peoples converge in Osaka in 2025.
” Immersive experiences and Filipino craftmanship will be the main features of the Philippine Pavilion, said Nograles. With its theme “Nature, Culture, and Community: Woven Together for a Better Future” (Woven), the pavilion “reflects our commitment to innovation, sustainability, and economic progress,” she added. Architect Carlo Calma leads the design team for the pavilion.
“For the first time at the World Expo, our pavilion will offer live performances integrated into the structure. This immersive space will use technology to highlight the diverse heritage of our 18 regions. The facade will display 212 handwoven textiles, showcasing the largest collaboration of weavers in a single project,” she said.
“At the TPB, Community-Based Tourism is a priority agenda for us not only to give that unique Philippine experience to every traveler that visits our country but also to empower local communities all over the nation,” Nograles underscored..
