Thursday, July 10, 2008 [ philstar.com }
European based Accor Hotel, United Kingdom’s Yotel, Malaysian hotel chain and two Indian firms are interested in building no frills hotels in the country.
“I will be meeting the representatives from the Indian firms in the next 90 days,” Samie Lim, chairman of the Philippine Franchisers Association said in an interview.
Lim refused to name the Indian companies saying only that one group owns four hotels while the other operates 30 hotels.
Lim explained that he is studying the concept of the Malaysian group which ties up the budget air fare to the hotel. “Air Asia has a partnership with a hotel near the airport. It is a good business,” he explained.
Lim said the investments are part of the ASEAN hotel project of the ASEAN member nations namely the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Myanmar and Malaysia.
The ASEAN hotel plans to build similar no frills hotels in the 10 member countries. The hotels will be priced the same. The amenities, rooms and the lobby of all the hotels across the ASEAN will be the same as well.
According to Lim, the ASEAN ministers approved the ASEAN hotel concept last year after the meeting of the economic ministers in Manila.
“All the ASEAN hotels will have similar services and integrated marketing and advertising,” Lim explained. “They will also conduct a centralized training for the food and beverage staff.”
This, he said, is necessary in order to ensure that the services provided by all ASEAN hotels are consistent.
Also, Lim said there will be more than one ASEAN hotel per country. In the Philippines, he said there should be ASEAN hotels in all major tourist destinations like Cebu, Boracay, Bacolod, Baguio and Ilocos.
Lim further said that the owner of the franchise in the country must be a local. If this is not possible, he said at least a big chunk of the hotel franchise is owned by a resident. For example, the master franchise of the hotel must be 34 percent owned by locals.
The Accor Hotel is currently operating in nearly 100 countries. It is the European leader in hotels and the global leader in corporate services. Yotel on the other hand is also a no frills hotel operating in United Kingdom.
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