Busuanga Island | Coron Municipality | Tourism Development
The Master Plan of the Philippine government involves an investment of P15.4 billion in Northern Palawan for tourism, environmental management and infrastructure for the next 10 years. An eco-tourism study conducted by the Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA) projects that Palawan needs 5,600 rooms by 2010.
There are only 513 rooms in Northern Palawan of which 156 are high quality, but none of them are in Coron. Data from the Department of Tourism (DOT) show that tourist arrivals in Coron increased from 12,400 in 2003 to 19,100 in 2004. It was estimated by the JICA study that the number of tourist going to the Busuanga/Coron area would increase to 36,600 while arrivals for the entire province of Palawan would reach 350,000.
Recent data of tourist arrivals via YKR Airport has shown a phenomenal growth; from 2,520 in 2006, 6,260 in 2007 and 8,312 from January to June 2008. This shows an increase of more than 100% in airport arrivals during the past 3 years.
