Record
Mountain arrivals, 1999–2015
The only long-run visitor dataset that exists for Lobo, and it counts mountains only, because nobody has ever counted the coast.
Between 1999 and 2015, 10,746 mountain ascents were recorded across Lobo's three climbed peaks, compiled from Philippine National Police and village council logbooks. Arrivals were negligible until 2013 and then rose sharply, reaching 9,486 in 2015 alone. No official municipal tourism arrival data has ever been published for Lobo.
This is the only long-run visitor dataset that exists for Lobo. It covers mountains only, because there is no equivalent record for the coast — a point the researchers make plainly, noting that Lobo's tourist arrivals, beach tourism included, have never been counted into the annual tourism statistics for Batangas province.
The shape of the data is the interesting part. For fourteen years the mountains recorded double-digit or low-triple-digit arrivals. Then in 2014 the figure jumped to 559, and in 2015 to 9,486. The paper's explanation is direct: people found out. Seventy-seven percent of surveyed mountaineers said they had learned about Lobo's mountains from blogsites.
Arrivals by year and peak
| Year | Mt. Banoy | Mt. Lobo–Naguiling | Mt. Tilos | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1999 | — | 14 | — | 14 |
| 2000 | 21 | 14 | — | 35 |
| 2001 | 12 | — | 17 | 29 |
| 2002 | — | 6 | — | 6 |
| 2003 | — | — | — | 0 |
| 2004 | 14 | — | — | 14 |
| 2005 | — | 22 | — | 22 |
| 2006 | 47 | 6 | — | 53 |
| 2007 | 10 | 3 | — | 13 |
| 2008 | 87 | — | — | 87 |
| 2009 | 187 | 37 | — | 224 |
| 2010 | 20 | 11 | — | 31 |
| 2011 | 4 | 43 | 3 | 50 |
| 2012 | 54 | — | — | 54 |
| 2013 | 28 | 37 | 4 | 69 |
| 2014 | 353 | 206 | — | 559 |
| 2015 | 9,331 | 138 | 17 | 9,486 |
| Total | 10,170 | 535 | 41 | 10,746 |
Blank cells indicate no available record rather than zero arrivals.
Where mountaineers came from
| Origin | Number | Note |
|---|---|---|
| National Capital Region | 7,545 | |
| CALABARZON | 2,535 | About 60% were Loboanos |
| Other Luzon provinces | 33 | Bataan, Bulacan, Pampanga, Nueva Ecija, Nueva Vizcaya |
| MIMAROPA | 10 | Mangyan students from Mindoro |
| Other countries | 16 | Australia, China, Korea, Taiwan, USA |
Who they were
In the 2014–2015 case study at Tibig on Mt. Banoy, climbers were 52 percent male and 48 percent female, average age 30. Day hiking dominated, with 333 groups day-hiking against 46 climbing overnight. Only eight groups went on to spend money at a beach resort afterwards, mostly along the Masaguitsit and Fabrica coast.
How they found out
In the 2015 survey (n=121), 93 respondents, or 77 percent, came via blogsites; 23, or 19 percent, from friends; and 5, or 4 percent, from Facebook. As of February 2016 there were 43 blog posts covering the three mountains — 28 on Tibig and Banoy, 14 on Lobo–Naguiling, and one on Tilos — alongside 58 YouTube videos totalling six hours and forty minutes, with 65,082 views between them.
Source and licence
Compiled by Caringal, A.M., Boongaling, J.A., Arcega, J.D., Gonzales, R.R. & Briones, R.U. (2017), From logging to blogging: Ecotourism in the mountains of Lobo, Verde Island Passage, Batangas Province, Philippines, Asia Life Sciences 26(2): 257–282, from Philippine National Police and village council logbooks. Reproduced here under CC BY 4.0 with attribution. Related: what mountain tourism earns and the mountains of Lobo.
Lobo, Batangas · 13°38′50″N 121°12′37″E · PSGC 0401015000
Edition 0 · Revised 27 JUL 2026