CEBU CITY — The collaboration of the ASEAN region with dialogue partners, dubbed as ASEAN Plus Three (APT), namely Japan, South Korea, and China, would mean a robust tourism sector not just for the regional bloc but within Asia.

“For ASEAN, tourism with China, Japan, and South Korea supports long-term demand, underpins investment decisions, and gives confidence to communities and businesses that depend on stable travel flows. When this partnership is strong, the benefits across destinations, value chains, and local economies,” said Tourism Secretary Christina Garcia Frasco during the 25th Meeting of ASEAN Plus Three Tourism Ministers, part of the ASEAN Tourism Forum (ATF) 2026, at the NUSTAR Resort and Casino here.

Further, Frasco, the chairperson of the ATF 2026, said the strengthening of travel across ASEAN and the APT signals more than recovery to tourism’s external shocks.

“It reflects renewed trust, improving certainty, and a shared responsibility to ensure that growth remains credible, resilient, and aligned with long-term economic interests. ASEAN’s engagement with China, Japan, and the Republic of Korea remains central to the vitality of regional tourism. These markets continue to play a significant role in travel to the ASEAN, supporting employment, sustaining enterprises across the tourism value chain, and contributing meaningfully to economic activity across our regions,” Frasco told her counterparts.

Moreover, she said APT’s continued engagement underscores the importance of stability, predictability, and confidence in travel, conditions that are equally critical to sustained investment in tourism, infrastructure, services, and human capital.

For the Philippines, its continued engagement with South Korea brought sustained air connectivity and strong people-to-people travel flows.

South Korean tourists topped the foreign tourist arrivals in 2025 at 1,345,967.

With Japan, Frasco said the Philippines’ long-standing cooperation is reinforced by the legacy and momentum of Expo 2025 in Osaka, which has strengthened the capacity building, standards, and quality in tourism development.

And with China, recent efforts to facilitate travel have helped restore confidence and momentum.

“Together, these experiences mirror broader cooperation between ASEAN and our dialogue partners,” she said, adding that during the 27^th ASEAN Summit in Lao PDR, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. reaffirmed the Philippines firm support for the APT Cooperation Work Plan2023-2027, underscoring the enduring value of economic partnership with China, Japan, and Korea, particularly in sustainable tourism.

“It reminds us that tourism cooperation is not pursued in isolation, but as part of a wider regional effort to strengthen connectivity, deepen economic integration and create conditions for inclusive and durable growth,” according to Frasco.

The APT Cooperation process began in December 1997 and, since then, has evolved as the main vehicle to promote East Asian Cooperation towards the long-term goal of building an East Asian Community, with ASEAN as the driving force.

The APT has become one of the most comprehensive cooperation frameworks in the region, and APT cooperation continues to be broadened and deepened in a wide range of areas, including political-security, trade and investment, finance, energy, tourism, agriculture and forestry, environment, education, health, culture and arts, etc, among others.

The APT also supports the implementation of the ASEAN Community Vision 2045.