Manila next year will host the largest route development forum in Asia-Pacific that is expected to increase air services and consequently, visitor arrivals to the country in the long run.

Routes Asia 2016 is scheduled in Manila on March 3 to 6 following a successful edition in Kunming, China. About 800 delegates from airports, airlines, and tourism authorities attended the event in China that featured a strategy summit and B2B meetings.

“We will be proud to see all of you at Routes Asia 2016 in Manila and take part in our vision to become a premiere multi-gateway destination in Asia, providing world-class arrival and departure experience in its major and secondary international airports,” says Director Verna C. Buensuceso, officer-in-charge of the Department of Tourism’s market development group.

Gerard Brown, head of future hosting, Routes & Airport Cities for UBM EMEA, the event’s organizer, says the event will be an opportunity for the Philippines to increase new air services and inbound tourism. “With superb connections to the whole of Asia, one of the fastest growing economies of Southeast Asia and both a modern and rapidly developing infrastructure, the Philippines is the ideal destination to hold Routes Asia in 2016.”

The Department of Transportation and Communication will likely complete the upgrading of NAIA Terminal 1 by the end of March. Meanwhile, the construction of an elevated highway linking Terminals 1, 2, and 3 to the Skyway and Manila Bay is expected to be finished by 2016. The DOTC is also expanding the passenger terminal building of Mactan-Cebu International Airport to accommodate eight million passengers per year.