P75M set aside for 50-room hotel expansion

HOMEGROWN hospitality brand Cebu Grand Hotel is poised to add around 50 more rooms as it embarks on a P75-million expansion targeted for completion in the third quarter of 2018.

Carlo Anton Suarez, Cebu Grand Hotel general manager, said this development comes amid an influx of tourists as well as the demand for Mice (meetings, incentives, conferences, exhibitions) facilities in the province and the rest of Central Visayas.

“We are expanding to respond to the influx of tourists and the demand in the Mice market,” he said in an interview early this month.

Cebu Grand Hotel is a wholly owned hotel arm of BF Management Corporation, a Cebuano company established over 20 years ago.

This 100-room business hotel is located at the heart of Cebu City business district, an easy and comfortable temporary home for both business and leisure travelers.

Situated in an integrated business and entertainment enclave on N. Escario Street, Cebu City, Cebu Grand Hotel serves as the anchor development of the two-hectare “Vibo Place,” formerly known as Cebu Capitol Commercial Complex.

Suarez said they intend to increase the hotel’s number of rooms to approximately 150 by September next year once the expansion is completed.
He said the construction project began last September and will run for about a year.

The expansion is being built adjacent to the existing property and will feature meeting spaces for smaller groups of 30 to 50 people which will complement the hotel’s existing function room that can house 300.

Suarez said the hotel has an average monthly occupancy rate of 60 to 65 percent since the start of the year, with more focus on the domestic market.
Among the hotel’s facilities are its Café Lorenzo, fitness gym, business center, poolside area and spacious car parking space.

Speaking as the president of the Hotels, Resorts, and Restaurants Association of Cebu (HRRAC), Suarez said 2017 had been one of the happier years for the hospitality sector.

Hotels in the city averaged at least 75 percent in occupancy while resorts on Mactan Island fared better at 80 percent.

With more tourists expected to come to Cebu with the opening of the new international passenger terminal building at the Mactan-Cebu International Airport by June next year, Suarez said he also anticipates more hotel rooms to be added to the metropolitan’s inventory in 2018.

Cebu currently has an inventory of 11,800 rooms with 2,500 rooms to be added in the next few years, according to investment management firm JLL.
In its special report for Cebu, property management and research firm Colliers International Philippines noted that the province attracted 4.17 million local and foreign tourists in 2016, up by 25 percent year-on-year.

Colliers said the expansion of the airport would entice more foreign airlines to mount more direct flights to Cebu.

The research firm added that Cebu’s rising attractiveness as a tourist spot and growing competitiveness as an investment destination should support a 15- to 20-percent growth in tourist arrivals over the next 12 months.

“This should sustain hotel occupancy of between 65 percent and 70 percent across Metro Cebu from 2017 to 2018,” Colliers said.