Travellers to build “right-sized” IRs outside Manila

Philippines billionaire Andrew Tan of Travellers International Hotel Group Inc has committed to investing in two casino resorts in Mactan, Cebu and Boracay Island. Construction will begin in 2026.

Philippines hospitality giant Travellers, a subsidiary of Alliance Global Group Inc (AGI), will invest PHP39.7 billion (US$700 million) in the developments.

“These will not be massive integrated resorts” like Newport World or Westside City in Manila, said Travellers President and CEO Nilo Thaddeus Rodriguez. “We are right-sizing the market by building boutique gaming centres that cater to the tourism estates we already operate.”

Tan’s Megaworld Corporation is known for “live-work-play” master-planned communities across the Philippines. Thirty-plus so-called townships include Mactan Newtown and Boracay Newcoast. They include hotel and office towers, condos, restaurants and retail sites plus convention halls, schools and other amenities like museums and golf courses.

The rise and fall of Philippines tourism

Boracay World Resorts will include a smaller-scale casino to fit the 10.3-square-kilometre holiday island. “We don’t want a big structure,” AGI President and CEO Kevin Tan said earlier this year. “We want it to be just right.”

Travellers’ boutique approach is appropriate given a recent drop in tourism to the Philippines.

In January, Department of Tourism Secretary Christina Garcia Frasco reported record-breaking revenue in the sector for 2024: about PHP760 billion. “With these figures,” she said then, “it’s clear that the Philippine tourism industry is not only bouncing back but also evolving and expanding.”

But those numbers have taken a tumble in 2025. According to Esquire Philippines, Korean arrivals dropped 18% from January through April, a loss attributed to increasing crime against Koreans. Arrivals from Mainland China dropped 34.4% for the same period. The likely causes included a decrease in discretionary income among the Chinese and the Philippines’ suspension of e-visas for visitors from China. Likewise, in a 1 September advisory, the Chinese Embassy in Manila warned of “increasing crimes targeting Chinese nationals”.

Travellers moves beyond Manila

Business outlet Context Philippines called Travellers’ plan “a strategic expansion of its casino and tourism footprint outside Metro Manila”, home of the Entertainment City casino zone.

The opposite side of the boutique coin is the sprawling Westside City integrated resort, now nearing completion in Parañaque. The PHP71 billion IR is “full speed ahead, with an opening targeted for the third quarter of 2026”, Rodriguez said.

With three hotels, a casino with 2,000-plus gaming machines and tables, a grand opera house and other amenities, “Westside City will be more than a destination,” Rodriguez told the Philippine Star. “It will get you closer to what you see in Marina Bay Sands or Macau.”

As iGaming overtakes land-based revenue in the Philippines, he added, retail casinos have an evolving and critical role to play. “Our role is not diminished but redefined – to anchor tourism, to deliver culture and entertainment and to provide the human connection and experiences that online play can never replicate.

“The focus now is completing Westside and operating it as soon as we can.”