DATA revealed during the recently held 2024 Tourism Development Planning Congress of Baguio City’s various departments and agencies show that the city’s resources are either seen to be or projected to be inadequate within the coming years, as village livability is at the minimum level of compliance and the city’s irritability index is going up.
A report by the City Planning and Development Office (CPDO), 2022 and 2023 shows at least one million tourist arrivals throughout the year, in addition to the census recording a permanent resident population of 380,269 as of the latest data.
Additionally, as of 2016, all of the following metrics have exceeded the threshold value for carrying capacity in the city: urban road area, solid waste collection, water supply, liquid waste treatment, open space, land for development, forest cover, and green space.
With the CPDO data, the city is found to require additional resources to commit to the tourist numbers, which in 2023 indicate the need for more police personnel, water and power production to meet consumption, and the disposal of solid and liquid waste.
Figures from the CPDO predict that the tourist population will once again hit the pre-pandemic figures of 1.5 million annually within five years, at which point current figures following the recorded growth rates will widen in deficiency to the projected needs, especially with projected resident population growth.
While the tourist population is estimated to have provided P28 billion in gross receipts in 2023, with temporary student populations estimated to have contributed another P6 billion in gross receipts, the city’s residents are showing increasing levels of negativity towards the tourism situation, according to the Doxey irritation index, a tool to measure the negative sentiment of locals to tourists and tourism activities.
According to the City Tourism Office (CTO), a 2021 study showed that the city’s residents have firmly hit the antagonistic outlook against tourists in many regards, such as a tendency to see tourists as major contributors to city pollution, outward irritation with regards to tourism activities and events, and as major points of interest and contributors to Baguio’s economy and development directions.
In conjunction with this, CPDO data shows that out of 10 criteria for barangay livability, which track the availability of services and resources to determine how well needs are met, only less than one-fourth of the city’s barangays are above the minimum level of quality.
The 2023 barangay livability survey shows that 23 percent or 29 of Baguio’s 128 barangays are tagged as “moderately livable,” which indicates a slight surplus of services and resource allocation over the minimum, and the vast majority are tagged as being right at the bare minimum level of livability at 93, and six barangays, which were not named, are tagged as declining in livability with demand overtaking supply but not to an extent of imminent collapse.
