Cebu hotels and the tourist market
Radisson Blu Hotel Cebu will improve their rooms with a P400 million budget for the hotel room facelift. CDN PHOTO/JUNJIE MENDOZA
Hotels improve rooms, eye bigger slice of expected tourist surge
Hotels in Cebu are gearing up for the expected surge of tourist arrivals into the province in the middle of the year with the opening of the new terminal of the Mactan Cebu International Airport (MCIA).
In order to ensure quality service and accommodation to these tourists, some hotels have embarked on renovation work for their rooms and their amenities.
Leading the way is Radisson Blu Cebu which is set to overhaul all of its 396 rooms.
P500-M facelift
Stephan Sieberg, the new German general manager of Radisson Blu Cebu, said in an interview with Cebu Daily News that the hotel’s owner, SM Hotels and Conventions Corp. (SMHCC), has set aside P400 million to P500 million for the renovation of their rooms.
“We will be renovating the 400 rooms entirely. It will start in June 1. The entire program will be for 18 months. But there should already be results by December this year. We want to be prepared for the future,” he said.
Each of the rooms will be entirely re-upholstered from mattresses, comforters, flooring, bathrooms, tiles, carpets, curtains, lightings and glasses among others. But he said they will not be doing any changes in the size and forms of the rooms.
There will also be new color palettes inside the rooms.
“We are proud and we took very special care of what our customers like. It will be a contemporary design with two different color schemes for the top floors and the lower floors. We have a design team from Singapore which also did the design of our other hotels,” Sieberg added.
Global chain changes
Aside from this, Sieberg announced that there will also be changes in the global chain of Radisson Blu hotels which is a brand owned by the Carlson Rezidor Hotel Group.
Starting March, he said the group will already carry the name Radisson Blu Hotel Group.
Sieberg assured though that the renovations will not affect the room rates of the hotel as he explained that any changes in pricing would have to be market-driven and not due to changes or improvements done by the hotel operator or its owner.
“The pricing will not change. But for sure over the years, it will. Our goal is not to invest in renovations in order to adjust to the next price levels. Our goal is to invest for the future,” he said.
Sieberg just took over as general manager of Radisson Blu Cebu in the first week of February. Prior to Cebu, he was assigned in Jakarta, Indonesia and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
The Hotels, Resorts, Restaurants Association of Cebu (HRRAC) welcomed the move of some of its members to start renovating their rooms.
Major thrusts
HRRAC President Carlo Suarez said this was one of their major thrusts for 2018 with the opening of the P17.5 billion Terminal 2 of the MCIA by June.
The new terminal is expected to cater to between 4.5 to 6 million passengers annually.
“Hotel renovation is good for the industry and it shows the influx of tourists arriving in Cebu. Once the new airport will open, we will be having more international direct flights and we will expect a huge increase of tourists,” he said.
Suarez added that there are other hotels aside from Radisson Blu Cebu that are also renovating their facilities.
For one, Suarez, who is also the general manager of Cebu Grand Hotel, said they are also investing on adding and renovating their rooms.
He said they have set aside P25 million for the construction of 20 additional rooms for their hotel.
The budget is also being used for major renovations of their function rooms.
Increase rooms
Department of Tourism (DOT) 7 Regional Director Shalimar Tamano earlier underscored the need for Cebu’s hospitality sector to increase their number of rooms in anticipation of the new airport terminal’s opening.
He said the current inventory of hotel rooms in the province is “lacking” especially since by the third quarter of this year, the Panglao International Airport in Bohol is also opening.
Tamano called these two airport “game changers” in the tourism industry of Central Visayas.
Marco Polo Plaza Cebu is also reportedly renovating their rooms.
According to Brian Connelly, general manager of Marco Polo, they will be implementing room renovations in the coming months.
Specifically, he said the guestrooms and suites between the 19th floor and 23rd floors of the hotel will undergo renovations which will start by April.
He said they hope to complete all renovations by September.
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