FILINVEST Development Corp. will be pouring in at least P1.1 billion in Cebu this year for expansions in their premium resort property in Mactan.
They will be adding 60 to 100 rooms in the Crimson Resort and Spa, said James Montenegro, Crimson Resort and Spa and Quest Hotel’s area general manager in an interview last week.
Montenegro said that they will be starting with the expansion by end of this month which will cover a total of 5,000 square meters of the 6.9-hectare property.
“There will be two phases to the expansion. The first phase will start by end of this month and the second phase before the year ends. We target completion of the expansion before 2017,” said Montenegro.
The increasing influx of tourists vacationing in Cebu as well as the growing MICE market or the meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions prompted the decision to add to their existing 290 rooms, he added.
Despite the two recent calamities hit the region including the northern part of Cebu, Montenegro said that both of their properties registered a high occupancy rate last year.
“Crimson ended with 75 percent occupancy rate while Quest with 427 rooms was at 70 percent occupancy,” he said.
While they lost at least three percent earnings from cancelled bookings in the resort due to the calamities, they gained 15 percent in their city hotel from international aid and volunteer groups coming to the country to help typhoon-hit areas like Tacloban.
TOURISTS BACK
Montenegro said they are seeing the tourist groups slowly coming back especially from the domestic MICE market.
“We target to achieve at least 72 percent this year for both properties. Hopefully, we can grow our international MICE market because what we have now are mostly domestic groups.”
Montenegro said to get a share of the market, they have strengthened their network of international sales offices that offer corporate and wholesale packages.
He said they are eyeing to open in China soon in the hopes of tapping into the huge Chinese market.