How Philippine resort strip went from sin city to family destination for local and foreign tourists
Subic Bay’s hostess bar strip sprang up to serve servicemen at the nearby US naval base, but in the 25 years since they left a different crowd has been drawn to its beaches and dive spots
Along a ramshackle coastal highway northwest of Manila, the neon of hostess bars illuminates signage advertising hotel stays of just a few hours. The Barrio Barretto strip along Subic Bay has operated that way for decades.
But it can be tough now to find a hostess in some of those bars, and roadside hotels are as dusty as the roadside itself as their customers slowly disappear. This strip along the deep-water bay where the US Navy ran a port from 1945 to 1992 is morphing instead into a higher-end resort district that brings families of tourists from Manila as well as from the colder regions of Europe.
So many people make the drive from Manila on the weekends that traffic crawls along the two-lane highway as if in an urban rush hour.
“The roads are jammed to the point of non-stop traffic Friday, Saturday and Sunday,” says Steve Hicky, sports manager at the beachside bar Harleys. “It’s the first place you come to with a beach. A lot more are travelling up from Manila and going up further north.”
Tourists from Australia and northern Europe pick Subic Bay for its calm beaches and shipwreck diving spots in the bay. Their interest has prompted hotels to offer jet-skiing, banana boat outings and diving excursions.