Palawan pivots to domestic market, launches Cebu expo to tap Visayas travelers

Palawan's provincial government has made a deliberate turn. After years of chasing international visitors, the island province is now looking inward—toward the millions of Filipinos who travel within their own country. The shift reflects a hard-won lesson: even a place as stunning as Palawan cannot rely on foreign tourists alone.

Governor Amy Roa Alvarez laid out the strategy during a press conference in Cebu this week. Tourism and agriculture are the economic backbone of Palawan, she explained, and the province needs to take its pitch wherever the market actually is. The reasoning is straightforward but represents a significant reorientation. For decades, Philippine tourism boards have treated domestic travel as secondary—a consolation prize when international arrivals dipped. Palawan is betting that approach has it backward.

Rey Felix Rafols, who leads the Palawan Tourism Council, acknowledged the paradox at the heart of the province's challenge. Palawan has been named one of the world's most beautiful islands. Yet when foreign travelers plan a Philippines trip, it often doesn't top their list. The council wants to change how Palawan is perceived—not just as a collection of limestone cliffs and turquoise water, but as a place with living culture, history, and people worth knowing. "We want a tourism that is available for everybody, but we also want a tourism that benefits every Palaweño," Rafols said. That distinction matters. Tourism can extract as easily as it can enrich.

The provincial government has already tested the waters in Seoul, Berlin, and Singapore. Those efforts revealed something useful: Palawan still needs to build its reputation in nearby Southeast Asian markets. But before launching a full rebranding campaign next year—one being developed by a Manila-based firm—Palawan is making a more immediate move. In late October, the province will hold a three-day trade expo in Cebu, the first time in eleven years it has hosted such an event outside Metro Manila. The "Palawan World's Best Island Travel and Trade Expo 2026" runs October 23 to 25 at Ayala Center Cebu, with the theme "Beyond Paradise: Connecting Islands, Creating Opportunities."

The choice of Cebu is strategic. Mactan-Cebu International Airport handled 11.6 million passengers last year. Central Visayas as a region drew 6.9 million tourist arrivals. More importantly, Cebu has direct flights to Puerto Princesa, El Nido, and Busuanga—the gateway to Coron—making it easy for Visayan travelers to add Palawan to a multi-destination trip. The flight from Cebu to Puerto Princesa takes just over an hour. The provincial government is targeting 8,000 visitors to the expo, 60 buyer companies, and P25 million in bookings over the three days. The event will bring together hotels, resorts, tour operators, and transport providers with travel agencies, corporate clients, and walk-in shoppers.

The numbers tell the story of why this pivot makes sense. In 2025, Palawan recorded 2.13 million tourist visits and generated P65.51 billion in tourism receipts. Foreign travelers accounted for 48 percent of arrivals. That's a dramatic shift from before the pandemic, when international visitors dominated. Now domestic and foreign tourists are nearly equal. The math is simple: there are more Filipinos than there are foreigners, and they are traveling more.

Alvarez and her team are not betting everything on marketing, though. They are also pushing to upgrade the physical infrastructure that makes travel to Palawan possible. The provincial government is in talks with the Department of Transportation about extending the runway in Coron and building a new terminal. A longer runway would allow larger aircraft to land and enable direct international flights. Runway lights would permit flights to operate after 5 p.m., expanding the window for connections. Additional flights are expected by November and December. Each improvement chips away at the friction that keeps travelers away—the long connections, the limited schedules, the high fares.

What Palawan is attempting is a recalibration, not an abandonment. Foreign tourism will remain important. But the province has recognized that its future depends on being accessible and appealing to the millions of Filipinos who can reach it by plane in an hour or two. The Cebu expo is the opening move. The rebranding campaign launching next year—built around the tagline "Duol ra diay ang Palawan" (Palawan is nearer than you think)—will carry that message forward. Whether it works depends on whether Palawan can convince Visayans that the island is worth the trip, and whether the infrastructure improvements actually arrive on schedule.