Page 210 - Volcano and Geothermal Tourism

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Volcano Tourism in the

Philippines

Jens Edelmann continuously moving tectonic plates, floating on the
Earth’s liquid magma. These movements reveal
Introduction themselves outwardly in numerous earthquakes and
other volcanic activity. The formation of the
A look at a map of the Philippines shows an archipelago into several big and a greater number of
archipelagic country. Its 7100 islands cover a land area smaller islands results from the collision of two major
of 299,764km², spread over an area of two million lithospheric plates, the south-east Asian and the
km² of sea, grouped into three regions: Luzon, the Philippine Sea plates. No less than six major
Visayas and Mindanao with the capital city of Manila. subduction zones appear on these complex volcanic
The Philippines has some 90 million inhabitants arcs, and three of them are related to active volcanism
with many affinities to the outside world, derived in historic times: the Manila Trench (to Pinatubo and
mainly from the cultures of Spain, Latin America and Taal), the Negros Trench (to Kanlaon) and the
the United States. Partly as a result, tourists play an Philippines Trench (to Mayon and Bulusan). The
important role in the Philippine economy; in the other subduction zones include the Central Mindanao
year 2008, net tourism income in the Philippines Arc, the East Luzon Trough and the Cotobato
totalled 3.6 billion US dollars (www.traveldocs.com/ Trench. The latter lack – with some exceptions –
ph/economy.htm). Most visitors come from the volcanism and/or well developed seismic zones. The
United States, Japan, South Korea and Hong Kong. last major trench is the Sulu Trench with an extinct
But there are also tourists from Taiwan, Australia, arc system (Datuin, 1982). Thus the archipelago is
Canada, Singapore, Great Britain, Switzerland and surrounded by active subduction zones giving rise to
Germany. Though Philippine tourism started to frequent tectonic earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and
flourish in the 1970s and 1980s, the country has mass earth movements.
remained fairly ‘non-touristic’ compared to other
regions in south-east Asia. Nevertheless, one objective Volcanic hazards and volcano
of the Philippine government is to boost the so called
ecotourism, and this is supported by the authorities monitoring in the Philippines
and Philippine laws. The eruptions of Hibok-Hibok on Camiguin
Island in the years 1948–53 and of Taal in Batangas
Geological setting province 28–30 September 1965 brought to the

The Philippines is built on a vast array of fractured fore the importance of volcanological studies in
tectonic plates belonging to the western part of the the Philippines and the need for surveillance of its
circum-Pacific ‘Ring of Fire’ (Chapter 1). This belt, active and potentially active volcanoes (Alcaraz,
that runs from the north of Japan, through the 1966). In the wake of the ravaging Hibok-Hibok
Philippines to New Zealand is an area with eruption in December 1951, when 600 people

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