Boracay Island in the central Philippines has world-famous pink and white sand beaches.
Billionaire Ramon Ang, the controlling shareholder of Philippine beer giant San Miguel Corp., is upgrading the airport serving the world-famous Boracay island, deepening his bet on a tourism boom in the country.
San Miguel has hired tycoon Edgar Saavedra’s Megawide Construction to build a new passenger terminal at Caticlan Airport, the gateway to Boracay Island in the central Philippines. The project, expected to be completed within three years, will require an investment of 3 billion pesos ($51 million) and increase the airport’s annual passenger capacity to 7 million passengers from the current 1.9 million, Ang said.
“We believe Megawide’s track record of building critical infrastructure through efficient and sustainable practices will help us build world-class facilities,” San Miguel Chairman and CEO Ang said in a statement.
San Miguel Beer Chairman and CEO Ramon Ang
Megawide’s joint venture with India’s GMR Infrastructure designed and built Mactan-Cebu International Airport in the central Philippines and Clark International Airport at a former U.S. Air Force base north of Manila.
Named one of the world’s top island destinations by Condé Nast Traveler magazine for its fine white sand beaches, Boracay attracted 1.6 million visitors in the first nine months of this year.
Caticlan Airport’s capacity has expanded significantly since San Miguel took over the facility in 2010, when it could handle 600,000 passengers annually. According to government forecasts, about 2.3 million tourists are expected to visit Boracay this year, a 15% increase from 2023.
The Boracay project is one of the airport concessions operated by the San Miguel Group, which has been stepping up investments to upgrade the country’s aging infrastructure. The group is spending P735 billion to build a new airport in Bulacan province, north of Manila, while spending P171 billion to upgrade the Ninoy Aquino International Airport, the country’s main international gateway, in the capital.
Ang is the architect of San Miguel’s expansion into infrastructure and energy as the company seeks to diversify from its core food and beer businesses. According to statistics, his net worth is $3.6 billion Forbes‘Instant data.
The Caticlan airport project is the latest collaboration between Ang and Saavedra. In July this year, San Miguel and Saavedra’s Citicore Renewable Energy formed a joint venture worth P6 billion to build a 153.5-megawatt solar farm in the northern Philippines, which is expected to be completed next year. And said he looks forward to building more partnerships with Saavedra.
Saavedra, a civil engineer and co-founder of Megawide Construction, has a net worth of $270 million, according to the Philippines’ 50 Richest List. Forbes Published in August.
