By AMADO P. MACASAET [ Malaya.com.ph ]
August 8, 2011
Obviously impressed by the influx of tourists to gaming in Resorts World, Alliance Global of new billionaire Andrew Tan is set to construct 16 more hotels in Metro Manila and other places with a total of 5,500 rooms.
A spokesman of the group told Malaya Business Insight the hotels will rise in Iloilo, Boracay and Tagaytay, apart from those which will go up in what he calls strategic parts of Metro Manila.
The spokesman said the total construction and other costs of the project have not been completely figured out as engineers, architects and design consultants are putting the final touches to the plan.
After the collapse of the financial system in 2008, Tan knew that the economy would steadily shift to the service sector while adjusting to the harsh conditions of being a member of the World Trade Organization.
Tan’s gaming venture is attracting gamblers, particularly from China and other countries in Southeast Asia, to travel with their wives and children. Alliance Global has a tour company that caters almost exclusively to the wives of gamblers.
His operation also has a fun place for children like a mini zoo.
The financial problems of the US prompted Tan to create a special zone for business process outsourcing (BPO) called Eastwood City in Quezon City. The zone is now home to BPO players with a total workforce of 40,000.
It is an area humming with activity 24 hours a day, seven days a week, according to Dina Inting, Alliance Global’s finance officer who earlier said the group estimates it will pay the government this year around P11 billion in income tax, net value added tax, excise tax, customs duties, and franchise fees.
Resorts World is the first Pagcor-licensed casino to operate in joint venture with a Malaysian group. Beside the Resorts World Hotel is Maxim Hotel, which has a reasonably high occupancy rate. Its attraction is being within a five-minute drive to the international airport.
Inting said her boss, Andrew Tan, believes that the hotel chain of Alliance Global will bring in at least one million tourists a year after the l6 hotels are built by 2014.
At the same time, she said, Megaworld Corp., the property arm of Alliance Global Group, will come up with "next-generation" BPO offices and campus buildings with 371,000 square meters of space also by 2014.
Inting said Megaworld has an inventory of 384,000 sq.m. of BPO office space. Close to 80,000 sq.m. more will be completed by the end of the year, she said.
Megaworld has another cyber park in McKinley Hill, Taguig City, that employs more than 15,000 workers.
Alliance Global is a highly diversified conglomerate that owns and controls Travellers International Hotel Group, Emperador Distillers, Golden Arches Development Corp., Megaworld Corp., Empire East Land Holdings Inc., Suntrust Properties and Tan’s first company, Consolidated Distillers of the Far East Inc.
Tan paved his way to big business with Consolidated Distillers, which was producing alcoholic drinks with essences of brandy and whiskey.
Tan barely survived the Asian contagion that started in Thailand and hit the Philippines late in 1997. In the following years, Tan has built high-end apartments in several strategic areas in Manila and its environs.
He had huge obligations with some banks but the demand for apartments came down to a point where the non-performing loans to property development of the banking system went up to higher than 10 percent.
He went the rounds of large daily newspapers and struck a deal where he would pay for advertisements for his Megaworld Properties with apartments.
In a recent interview, he told Malaya Business Insight that the idea saved his company from possible collapse.
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