This work reports an effective way for inducing room temperature photoluminescence (PL) in ${\mathrm{Mn}}^{2+}$-doped ${\mathrm{BaF}}_{2}$ and ${\mathrm{SrF}}_{2}$ using high-pressure techniques. The aim is to understand the surprising PL behavior exhibited by ${\mathrm{Mn}}^{2+}$ at the cubal site of the fluorite structure. While ${\mathrm{Mn}}^{2+}$-doped ${\mathrm{CaF}}_{2}$ shows a green PL with quantum yield close to 1 at room temperature, ${\mathrm{Mn}}^{2+}$-doped $M{\mathrm{F}}_{2}$ $(M=\mathrm{B}\mathrm{a},\mathrm{S}\mathrm{r})$ is not PL either at room temperature $({\mathrm{SrF}}_{2})$ or at any temperature $({\mathrm{BaF}}_{2})$ at ambient pressure. We associate the loss of ${\mathrm{Mn}}^{2+}$ PL on passing from ${\mathrm{CaF}}_{2}$ to ${\mathrm{SrF}}_{2}$ or ${\mathrm{BaF}}_{2}$ with nonradiative multiphonon relaxation whose thermal activation energy decreases along the series ${\mathrm{CaF}}_{2}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}{\mathrm{SrF}}_{2}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}{\mathrm{BaF}}_{2}.$ A salient feature of this work deals with the increase of activation energy induced by pressure. It leads to a quantum yield enhancement, which favors PL recovery. Furthermore, the activation energy mainly depends on the crystal volume per molecule irrespective of the crystal structure or the local symmetry around the impurity. In this way, the relevance of the fluorite-to-cotunnite phase transition is analyzed in connection with the PL properties of the investigated compounds. The PL spectrum and the corresponding lifetime are reported for both structural phases as a function of pressure.