Tourist draws

There are Filipinos, mostly millennials and Gen Zs, who readily blow a month’s salary or school allowance on trips overseas just to watch K-pop bands.

And they’re not alone. Tickets to the top bands are quickly snapped up online in other countries, so fans must be ready to compete as soon as the e-ticket platforms open, which could be at ungodly hours.

It’s not just concert tickets. There’s a booming industry in K-pop merch. You see the stuff everywhere, from major shopping malls to flea markets.

So I wasn’t surprised to learn that since the start of the year, there’s been an unusual surge in visa applications for South Korea. And yes, Korean Ambassador Lee Sang-hwa confirmed – the top reason given is to watch the free comeback concert in Seoul of K-pop super group BTS on March 21.

Nearly 300,000 fans are expected to descend on Seoul for the band’s first full-group performance in nearly four years. Within the first minutes of the booking website’s opening, screens crashed as over 100,000 flooded the platform.

K-pop, with its distinctive riffs and choreography, has become a major tourist draw and cultural export for South Korea, along with K-drama. Hallyu, the Korean wave, has conquered the world, promoting Korean cuisine, fashion, cosmetics and looks. In the Philippines, Korean dining places have mushroomed. (Bonchon’s snow cheese fried chicken is my current favorite, and has been copied by several fast-food chains).

Last Feb. 1, Huntrix became the first Korean band to win a Grammy, bagging the Best Song Written for Visual Media for “Golden,” from the monster hit animation movie “KPop Demon Hunters.”

When I visited the Gyeongbokgung palace in Seoul last November, it was teeming with foreign tourists, many of whom were posing for pictures clad in rented traditional hanbok attire at the settings for many of the period K-drama movies, TV shows and two of the BTS music videos.

Filipinos’ enchantment with many things Korean makes the 77th anniversary of diplomatic ties between the two countries this March 3 an event that truly merits celebration.

Last Friday, the Korean government reported that the country’s content industry exports hit a record high $14.08 billion in 2024. And this was over a year before BTS regrouped for its comeback performances.

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Hallyu provides insights on how to strengthen cultural exports and tourism. But it’s not the only reason why South Korea has become a tourist magnet, drawing an all-time high 18.94 million international arrivals last year. Apart from its cultural attractions, a visit to the country is reasonably priced.

Gen Zs and millennials can afford a weekend in Seoul that can include a K-pop concert and shopping in Myeong-dong.

The same can be said of the top tourist destinations in Southeast Asia. In terms of foreign tourist arrivals, we’re eating the dust of our neighbors Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. Cambodia is closing in on us, and if we don’t do our homework, it might soon also overtake us.

It doesn’t help that our tourism secretary’s idea of homework is promoting her home province and herself.

Travel agents have cited three major hurdles in attracting foreign leisure travelers. One is costly (and inadequate) accommodations compared to those of the same quality in neighboring countries.

Another is the steepness of airfares in comparison to our Asian neighbors. This is compounded by weak air connectivity, with so few direct flights even from our international airports to key cities overseas.

The third is peace and order. Concerns over personal security have significantly cut arrivals from what used to be our two biggest sources of leisure travelers – South Korea and China.

For prospective visitors from China, our dispute over the West Philippine Sea is a factor, but travel agents say the bigger reasons are those three that I have mentioned. Our neighbors provide more affordable, convenient and safer destinations.

Industry players told me that our hotel rates are pegged to US dollar rates. They complained that hotel classifications or rankings are not standardized. A hotel in the Philippines described as four-star, for example, is inferior to the typical four-star hotel in Thailand or Malaysia.

As for the steep airfares, airlines have pushed back against accusations that they are fully to blame for this. The airlines have cited two key factors. One is the small size of airports in many tourist destinations, which can accommodate only light planes. Such aircraft obviously can carry only a few passengers, which makes the airfare more expensive than if bigger planes are used.

The second factor is the significant increase in fees at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport following its privatization.

This is the cost of the inability of government – despite an ever-growing number of employees – to run anything efficiently. Private entities are not charities; they must turn a profit. And the deal struck by the NAIA private operator entails significant increases within a short period in practically all fees at the airport, from car parking to plane servicing.

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Filipinos are heavily taxed – from taxes automatically withheld, such as income, value-added as well as excise taxes on fuel and “sin” products – to other items such as road users, amusement and lotto taxes. VAT is collected at almost every layer of our utility bills.

Yet, thanks to the systematic looting of the national budget, the government can’t even afford to build and operate on its own additional roads that are badly needed at least within Metro Manila.

Instead the road projects are left to private investors, who of course need a return on investment and collect stiff tolls. The end-to-end, one-way toll on the Skyway from Alabang to Balintawak, for example, costs P428 for Class 1 vehicles, and P528 for buses and light trucks.

With the billions allocated to the Department of Public Works and Highways, why can’t it build a 39-kilometer elevated road, so that there’s no need for a toll? Where do our taxes go? (OK, we know where they go.)

Road tolls are logistics costs that contribute to inflation. And even middle class motorists think twice about paying hundreds for one-way road use. The typical motorist would rather endure traffic at ground level unless there’s an emergency. This defeats the purpose of expanding the road network, which is traffic decongestion.

Now, with inadequate airports being blamed for high airfares, expect the government to rely once again on the private sector, instead of acting on the problem ASAP.

By the time the runways are expanded and airports built, Cambodia and Laos would have overtaken us in tourism arrivals. And we can only look on in envy at them, at South Korea and much of the rest of Asia.