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For travel specialist Lorenzo Urra, who grew up in the Philippines and spent childhood vacations on Boracay in the early 1980s, the island was a secret his family was lucky enough to be in on. “It was a five-hour, non air-conditioned jeepney ride from Iloilo City to the jump-off point of Caticlan port," he says. "From there, it was a half-hour local banca fishing boat to Boracay. We were dropped off at the island; at that time, there were barely two people who owned the entire thing, and built a couple beach homes that they let us borrow. There was no electricity or running water, and local fisherman would come up to us and offer their fresh catch. White Beach hardly had a soul on it—only a few adventurous backpackers.”
Today, of course, those "few" have multiplied by the thousands, crowding that powder-fine beach. They’re joined by selfie-stick-wielding tour groups and luxury travelers who arrive by private jet. Word has officially gotten out on Boracay—and we’re complicit. For the past few three years, the four-square-mile island has topped Condé Nast Traveler's Readers’ Choice Awards list of world's best islands: It first made an appearance in 2013, and rose to the very top in 2016, where it has lingered in the top two ever since. Travelers have evangelized its beauty and nightlife—and the ability to enjoy both for an affordable rate. “Soft white sand, calm seas, clear water, and one of the best sunsets I’ve ever seen—what more could you ask for?” said one reader. Wrote another: “I am truly captivated by how this island can be serene and bursting with life all at the same time.” But as of late, the island has become something else: the poster child for overtourism—a branding that came front and center when the Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte closed the island for “rehabilitation” just a few months ago. How could things go so wrong, so quickly?
Boracay, one of the Philippines' 7,641 islands, had its big reveal in the 1980s. It served as the set for American movies like Too Late the Hero (1970) and Nam’s Angels (1989), and travel writer Jens Peter swooned over it in his 1979 Philippines Travel Guide, describing it as "paradise on earth." By the 1990s, the backpacker vanguard had arrived: Boracay was a screensaver brought to life, with dazzling white sand, so-clear-you-can-see-your-toes water, and a lush jungle backdrop, available to anyone willing to make the journey. On top of that? The low cost of living meant you could catch a flight—or boat—to the island, take off your pack, and settle in for weeks on end. It was the paradise Leonardo DiCaprio chased in The Beach, just a couple of countries over.
In 2000, the island saw 260,000 annual visitors—about two-thirds were domestic tourists. That number jumped to about 650,000 in 2009, thanks in large part to the opening of the Shangri-La Boracay Resort & Spa, the first luxury resort of its kind on the island—and one of our readers' favorite resorts in Asia. By 2012, that number nearly doubled again to 1.2 million visitors; Boracay was also named the best island in the world by Travel + Leisure, and the tiny spot, accessible only by boat or private plane, received its very own McDonald's—smack dab in the middle of Urra’s previously secret White Beach. Last year, more than two million people visited the island; more than half were foreign tourists. The type of traveler began to evolve as well.
“It [began attracting] younger, pleasure-seeking visitors who were probably not as interested in the history, culture, and food of the Philippines as opposed to just having a good time at low cost—think spring break in America,” says Walter Keats, the president and founder of Asia Pacific Travel, a tour operator that has specialized in small group travel to the region since 1979. “There were too many tourists spending too little money there [to support infrastructural needs] and leaving lots of waste in their path.” It also became an easy destination for mass group travel from China—a trend that involves large cruise ships, big buses, and new developments to accommodate these visitors—despite the fact that the island isn’t built for, well, mass anything (Chinese travelers represented one-third of all arrivals in 2017).
Locals—hotel owners, beach vendors, taxi drivers—have scrambled to accommodate the masses. Hotels have been thrown up, some semblance of roads cast across the island, and bigger structural questions, such as waste or trash management, handled with a finger-in-the-dike approach. (Rather than establish an underground sewer network, for example, many business built their own above-ground solutions of PVC pipe leading to the ocean—despite the fact that none of them had access to equipment for treating sewage.) Filipinos from neighboring islands have seen the opportunity and begun to flock, too, so that by 2012 more than 42,000 of the 1.2 million people arriving in Boracay annually were domestic workers coming to support the tourism industry. Though the government has said the large number of workers is what has pushed Boracay past its carrying capacity, it's clear that tourism and the workers catering to them go hand in hand.
Over the last few years, to many, Boracay not only lost its charm; it fell into complete disarray. “On an island, you have to treat waste,” says Sandy Ferguson, a travel specialist at Asia Desk with more than 40 years of experience in Southeast Asia. “Not just pump [raw sewage] 200 yards offshore as they’ve been doing in Boracay.” For every screensaver photo, you’ll see another of trash littering the beach, or garbage cluttering the city streets. The waters once clear enough to see the reefs below have filled with a green algae—and tested positive for coliform bacteria, with counts high enough to cause skin infections and stomach aches. As for the reefs? Illegal fishing, pollution, and unmonitored snorkeling are said to have destroyed 70-90 percent of the coral cover in the past 30 years alone. “There are simply too many hotels and tourists on a small island with inadequate infrastructure to handle important issues like sewage, sanitation, garbage, and pollution,” says Catherine Heald, who is a luxury travel specialist at Remote Lands.
In February, Duterte infamously called Boracay a “cesspool” and demanded a six-month closure to rehabilitate it. The explanation, similar to that afforded Thailand’s Maya Bay when it closed, was that a cooling-off period would allow the island to heal, while special task forces would chip away at building better infrastructure.
Over the past six months, bulldozers have torn down illegal beachfront properties. Tourists were barred from setting foot on the island, and the government tried to relocate many service workers to other neighboring towns and cities. New rules were put in place for the post-rehab Boracay. The island’s infamous parties would be outlawed, as would any smoking or drinking on the beach. Every operating hotel would need to apply and pay for a new set of permits, which demanded certain operational standards—waste management among them. Single-use plastics and styrofoam have been banned, and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources will enforce a series of escalating fines for first- and second-time offenders, and will revoke business licenses on third strikes. Though an exact number has not been set, there is talk, too, of limiting the number of travelers and workers on the island at any given time, as previously reported by Traveler's Cynthia Drescher.
Boracay is set for a "soft opening" on October 26, Bernadette Romulo-Puyat, secretary of the Department of Tourism, told The Philippine Daily Inquirer. Only some hotel rooms will be open, road construction will still be underway, and new regulations will be introduced, with the understanding that things may change as the new Boracay finds its feet; Romulo-Puyat says the full overhaul won’t be complete until the end of 2019. “How can you rehabilitate an island under a state of calamity in only six months?” she asked.
Others agree. “I’m skeptical that six months is sufficient,” says Heald. Many in the travel community don’t believe the government even cared about cleaning up the island in the first place. “The closure of Boracay is designed to run off the smaller fish in the commercial sector who cannot suffer extended periods with no business,” says Ferguson.
Several locals, none who were willing to speak on the record (out of fear of publicly criticizing Duterte’s government), also believe the closure was intended to snuff out their smaller businesses on the island so larger investments will have room to grow. (At the time of the closure, CNN Philippines reported an expected loss of more than one billion USD, with more than 36,000 locals likely to lose their jobs.) A project to expand the local airport by adding a two-story international terminal began in 2017, and is expected to be complete by the end of 2018. It will be able to accommodate six million passengers a year, which is three times the annual visitors it received last year, the majority of whom arrived by boat. Most notably, Duterte’s government approved a $500 million casino development just before the island’s closure this year, leading local business owners and resident to speak out against it.
“We want our children to grow up without the influence of gambling,” Evangeline Tambuon of the Boracay Ati Tribal Organization told local outlet The Philippine Daily Inquirer. (The Ati people were the first settlers of the island some 20,000-30,000 years ago.) In March, photos surfaced online showing local fishermen’s alliance PAMALAKAYA protesting the development as well. “It is clear that the rehabilitation effort of Duterte is only a vehicle for clearing small businesses and opening Boracay to big-time developers that will intensify the exploitation of the island,” said Fernando Hicap, chairman of the PAMALAKAYA, on the group’s blog. “We will oppose this grand sellout and corporate takeover of our natural resources at all costs.”
What’s next for Boracay will only become clear once it fully reopens. Many believe true recovery of the island would take continued regulatory measures—perhaps a limit on daily visitors, and a tourism tax on every head, suggests Keats—and a serious pullback on new developments. No matter what happens, the story of Boracay should be a cautionary tale, says Urra, who is also the founder of travel agency Global Nomad. “It’s the worst example of how to destroy a beautiful island. Everyone, the government, locals, tourists, and all stakeholders on the island need to take better care of this precious natural space.”