The idea of a single tourist visa for ASEAN (the Association of Southeast Asian Nations), often compared to Europe’s Schengen Area, regularly resurfaces in regional discussions but has yet to materialize.
First floated in the early 2010s as a way to boost Southeast Asia’s appeal in competition with other major global tourism hubs, the proposal aims to allow foreign travelers to enter and move more freely among multiple member states under a single authorization.
ASEAN currently comprises ten member countriesnamely Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam, which could ultimately be included in such a common visa scheme. The initiative could be rolled out in phases or among groups of countries, while remaining anchored in a broader, integrated regional framework.
Discussions, however, face a range of complex challenges: differing immigration policies, security concerns, uneven administrative capacities, and, in some cases, sensitive or even strained bilateral relations between member states.
Despite broad agreement in principle on the need to facilitate intra-regional and international tourism flows, a common ASEAN visa remains a long-running diplomatic proposal, periodically revived but never brought to fruition.
Cebu to host new ministerial discussions on the ASEAN common visa
Against this backdrop, Philippine Secretary of Tourism Christina Frasco has confirmed that the unified visa issue will be on the agenda of ministerial meetings to be held in Cebu on the sidelines of the ASEAN Tourism Forum (ATF), from January 28 to 30.
“As part of the ASEAN tourism strategic plan (ATSP), there is a priority on seamless access and accessibility overall to the region, and therefore visa-free access and unified visas may be taken up as a component of the ATSP,” Frasco said in an interview on the sidelines of the ASEAN Travel Exchange 2026, according to the Philippine News Agency (PNA), the official news agency of the Philippine government.
She reiterated the commitment of ASEAN member states to promoting Southeast Asia as “a unified destination,” while stopping short of specifying priority markets or the concrete modalities of any potential common visa arrangement.
“I really would not want to preempt our fellow ASEAN ministers. Only that the desire is for us to be able to develop the ASEAN region in a manner that will allow benefits to be felt across the region,” explained the Secretary of Tourism. “We can certainly both learn from each other and benefit from each other’s tourism flows,” she added.
Philippines: a resilient tourism sector despite constraints in 2025
These discussions come as the Philippines posts improving, though still uneven, tourism results.
In 2025, the country recorded approximately 5.87 million international tourist arrivals, according to consolidated data from the Bureau of Immigration, a figure slightly higher than that captured by the eTravel system, which does not fully account for certain categories of visitors, particularly cruise passengers. When more than 543,000 returning overseas Filipinos are included, the total number of foreign visitors exceeded 6.48 million over the past year.
Spending by international visitors nevertheless reached a high level, with expenditures estimated at nearly 694 billion Philippine pesos, reflecting strong consumer spending power.
Last week, Christina Frasco emphasized that these results were achieved despite a challenging environment marked by global uncertainties, a series of natural disasters toward the end of 2025, and a cut of more than 93% in her department’s promotional budget.
That said, visitor numbers remain below pre-pandemic levels. Arrivals in 2025 were still down 29% compared with the record 8.26 million tourists recorded in 2019. A comparison with 2024 also shows a slight decline in inbound flows, with arrivals of foreign nationals down 2.08% and overseas Filipinos down 6.41%, according to Bureau of Immigration data.
Authorities are therefore emphasizing a broader assessment of tourism performance, highlighting the strength of domestic tourism, value creation, and employment in a sector whose contribution to gross domestic product is now approaching 9%.
In this context, Christina Frasco believes that expanded travel routes, improved connectivity, and deeper regional tourism integration within ASEAN could serve as key growth drivers over the medium term.
