The Philippine island of Palawan isn’t short of admirers. There’s Jacques Cousteau, the French oceanographer, who described the little-known island as the most beautiful place he had ever explored. Then there’s Alex Garland, the author who took inspiration from Palawan’s palm-fringed beaches, hidden lagoons and coral reefs and turned it into novel The Beach, which was later made into a film starring Leonardo DiCaprio.
Now, the world’s media are taking notice. For two years in a row, Palawan has been voted the best island on Earth by readers of Travel + Leisure, one of America’s most influential travel magazines – and has been chosen as the backdrop to Hollywood films including The World is Not Enough and The Bourne Legacy. No wonder: there are powder-white beaches, blue skies and sea and fascinatingly diverse marine life.
It has all the hallmarks of a paradise – but, arguably, so do the Maldives, Seychelles and Mauritius. So what makes Palawan different from other identical tropical idylls? It’s paradise with personality. Yes, it ticks all the classic desert-island boxes, but it has splashes of local colour too: folklore, such as shape-shifting monsters and “white ladies” woven into the fabric of history, the excitement and chaos of 5am Simbang Gabi (night mass) leading up to Christmas, and chickens and pigs going about their own business.
Palawan remains relatively unspoilt and, thankfully, Thailand-style tourist hordes haven’t yet descended. This is where you can still have an entire island all to yourself and where the evening skies are so clear that when you look up at night, the Great Square of Pegasus, the upside-down winged horse is always in full view.
When we decided to invest in the Philippines we needed as first condition that there was a location with a good flight connection from Manila . Aside of Cebu , which is a much bigger island , we decided to bet on Busuanga Island , which has an airport in Coron (USU) with several connecting flights every day with Manila International Airport (Cebu Pacific and Skyjet). It is also connected with the other International Airport in Manila (Clark Airport) through Philippines Airlines with 5 flights a day. Moreover, the same airline serves also the airport of Coron with the island of Cebu.
Another local flight company , Air Juan, connects Coron with direct flights to top destinations of Boracay and Puerto Princesa and also, local flight company, Air Swift , connects Coron to El Nido with frequent flights.
The island of Busuanga is also well connected by sea with several passengers and cargo vessels from/to Manila, Batangas City, Mindoro, Puerto Princesa, El Nido and Cuyo.
One very important factor to consider for investors is that there is already on the table a plan to make the airport of Coron from local to International and this will allow the local Airport to receive tourists with direct flights from Hong Kong ,Korea and China. This change will definitely give a very important upside factor to your investment. Please have a read to the related news.
Another positive development for the potential investors is that there is a new road, completed already at 90% and already usable by cars and vans , which connect the airport of Coron with the main road to Ocamocam Beach. This shortcut allows you to complete the whole trip from the airport gates to our beach within 45 minutes instead of 85 minutes required before. There is also already a very established taxi/van private service that can pick up tourists from the airport to Ocamocam directly. Please have a look at the new roadmap of the Island of Busuanga :
Before buying our property, we also conducted a survey regarding the Typhoons issues and we learned that normally all the typhoons start from the North-East side of the Philippines. This will make our property on Busuanga relatively safe because when the typhoon arrives, it will be less powerful compared to it first hits on the country. We experienced one of the biggest typhoon (L’Olanda) which hit the Philippines in 2013. There was minimal damage but not as destructive compared to other parts of the country.
Tourist development situation on the Island of Busuanga
The Island of Busuanga is part of the Palawan Province which is voted twice by the American magazine "Leisure+Travel" as the best island in the world. Also, Conde’ Nast Traveller voted Busuanga as one of the best destinations in the world. One of the biggest reason in deciding to visit Palawan: first to visit the island of Palawan and especially the location of El Nido. Then they will fly to Coron to visit Busuanga.
According to the recent reviews and surveys, most of them seems to appreciate Busuanga more than Palawan. Busuanga’s main tourists’ accommodations is in Coron City. From there you can do daily island hopping trips with the boats to all the beautiful tourist destinations: Kayangan Lake, Siete Pescados, Barracuda Lake, Twin Lagoon, Beach 91, Skeleton Wretch and Malwawey Coral Garden just to name a few. Worth to mention also that the island is also world top destination for scuba divers who love to do wreck-diving.
Nearby to the coast, you can find many Japanese ships wrecks from the II W.W. which are one of the main attractions in the whole region. The city of Coron, in our opinion, is overcrowded with too many tricycle traffic, small roads and none of the hotels or resorts has a beach or even facing one. This is very far away from what you would expect arriving in a tropical island.
If you are lucky enough, you can have a swimming pool or have a sea view from far. This is not exactly what a tourist like us is going to enjoy after more than ten hour flight from Europe. And we have to stress that in the city of Coron, there are quite a lot of hotels but the standard is pretty basic and there are small offerings for medium-high spenders travellers like us.
For high spenders, there are at least two choices : one is Huma Resort and the other one is the Two Season resort which you have to spend at least Usd 500 per night and worth to mention also that you are in a private island which can be also a minus for someone . Our "resort to be" is instead on one of the few beaches in the island, in fact, one of the best. Many tourists are sighted doing daily trips with rented motorcycles from Coron to Ocamocam to enjoy the very special feeling of a pristine beach surrounded by locals . Our competitors are “El Faro” “Busuanga Bay Lodge” and “Puerto del Sol” but none of them is located directly on a beach. They are currently on the slopes of small hills , facing a bay (not the open ocean). Another plus of our unique location is that the majority of the boats doing island hopping from Coron, are also visiting the same islands at the same time , meaning you are on a beautiful beach but you are surrounded by way too many tourists which may ruin the natural ambience of the location.
On the other side, from our resort, you can reach very easily (5 mins boat) the natural wonder of “Black Island” which , is far from Coron, is not so overcrowded even in the highest season. Moreover you will also be able to visit other beautiful islands/beaches that are still unspoiled and pristine. To spend few hours all by yourself on a top beach is priceless and make your holiday a memorable one. Worth to mention also that we are very close to another big attraction of the island of Busuanga : the Calauit Safari . This is a unique piece of Africa inside of the Philippines where visitors can see Giraffes and Zebras living not in a cage but free in the wild. You can also have an unique experience of feeding the giraffe by yourselves ! There are also local antelopes living there plus other animals like crocodiles or wild bores (those in a cage of course).
Be prepared to have comments at your pictures you posted on the social media where your friend will ask you : “Hey … you told me you were going to the Philippines but instead you went to Africa !! What happened ??”.
Tourism increasing:On the 12th March 2019 The Department of Transportation (DOTr), its attached airport regulatory body Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (CAAP), and local government officials broke ground Tuesday in Coron town for the inception of the estimated P953 million Busuanga Airport Development Project (BADP). The BADP seeks to transfer and expand the Francisco B. Reyes (FBR) Airport in Busuanga, which could only cater to smaller aircraft, to a new location within the Yulo King Ranch (YKR) in Coron municipality. Governor Jose Alvarez in a social media post said the regional airport development is “another President Rodrigo Duterte project” that will be implemented for the 2.5 million tourists the provincial government is targeting in the next 10 years that have the potential to increase to “five million by 2030.” The ₱953.4 million airport development project, which involves the construction of runway embankment and re-orientation of the airport’s runway was put in place to improve the airport’s facilities and make way for its utilization by bigger types of aircraft. In a press statement released by CAAP also Tuesday, it said that in 2017, Busuanga Airport catered to 525,044 passengers, a 63.26% increase from the 321,595 passengers it received in 2016. “The government recognizes that an airport such as Busuanga Airport will provide a further boost to the movement of various trade activities and contribute to the development of the islands’ local and regional economy,” it said. Please have a read at this news page