How to drive away tourists

With Philippine tourism already struggling to catch up with Southeast Asian neighbors, the last thing the industry needs is another price-gouging taxi driver targeting a foreign visitor.

Worse for Philippine tourism, the victim is a member of a popular K-pop group, Soobin of TXT or Tomorrow X Together, who vlogged about his experience in Cebu.

For the Philippines, South Korea has been the biggest source of international arrivals even before the pandemic. But the number has been going down, plummeting by 20.5 percent last year, largely due to Korean concerns about their personal safety in the Philippines.

That’s still 1.25 million South Korean visitors in 2025, accounting for 21.34 percent of the 5.87 million total arrivals in the Philippines last year. But the numbers should be going up instead of down.

Cebu has seen a drop in Korean visitors. Among the reasons, apart from personal safety issues, are stories about overcharging taxi drivers.

Soobin is not the first victim of inhospitable cheats. In his vlog, he disclosed that he had in fact been warned by his fellow TXT member Taehyun about such scams in the Philippines. In October 2022, Joshua Hong of K-pop group Seventeen also revealed that he was overcharged by a taxi driver in Manila.

The amounts may seem like peanuts, but it’s the thought of being scammed that riles travelers in a foreign land. Price gouging compounds perceptions of criminal attacks targeting South Koreans in the Philippines, with the perpetrators going unpunished and free to attack again. Former anti-narcotics police officer Rafael Dumlao III, whose wife works in the National Bureau of Investigation, remains at large, free to enjoy the millions in ransom paid by the widow of his victim, South Korean businessman Jee Ick-joo, who was kidnapped by cops and strangled to death at Camp Crame.

If visitors aren’t being scammed, mugged or killed, they’re being molested by unprofessional security personnel. This was the experience of K-pop boy group Enhypen in February 2023, when video footage showed a woman giggling as she patted down the band members. Why was a woman patting down males? And was that woman ever penalized? The Office for Transportation Security acknowledged the unprofessional behavior and announced a probe, but did not say if the woman was ever sanctioned. Maybe she received a medal for exemplary service and became the envy of other giggly OTS personnel.

The Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board has summoned the operator of the taxi in Cebu whose driver was the subject of Soobin’s complaint.

Based on previous events, however, the Koreans are probably not holding their breath about anyone being punished.