Posted on
January 13, 2013 09:56:10 PM [ BusinessWorld Online ]
A UNIT of
Ayala Land, Inc. plans develop more resorts as part of a target to offer as
many as 4,000 rooms in two years, a top company official said late last week.
“We have
other resort developments being planned and, at some point within this year, we
will disclose more details on these,” Jose Emmanuel H. Jalandoni, president of
AyalaLand Hotels and Resorts Corp., said in an interview last Friday on the
sidelines of a briefing at Raffles Makati when asked about the unit’s expansion
plans this year.
When asked
for the locations of the planned new resorts, Mr. Jalandoni replied: “They will
be all over: Mindanao, Luzon, Visayas.”
“We continue
to grow this business because we believe in the tourism potential of the
country,” Mr. Jalandoni said.
“The government
is pushing tourism, but at the same time we find there is a need for more
products to be out in the market.”
Ayala Land is
a property company that is involved largely in residential and commercial
developments. But it has also ventured into hotels and leisure-type projects
via AyalaLand Hotels and Resorts.
So far, the
Ayala Land unit has developed El Nido Resorts, an island resort complex in El
Nido, Palawan, consisting of the Lagen, Milinoc, Apulit and Pangulasian Island
Resorts.
“We have just
opened Pangulasian. We soft-opened in last quarter of 2012,” Mr. Jalandoni
said.
“It’s doing
quite well, and we’re very happy with the development and the guests are very
happy too.”
In November
last year, Ayala Land President Antonino T. Aquino told reporters that Ayala
Land is keen on acquiring as much as 1,000 square meters of beach and island
properties in the Visayas in the next few years in order to expand the
company’s growing tourism and leisure development portfolio, but he did not
cite details.
Ayala Land
also plans to open more hotels this year. “After CdO (Cagayan de Oro City),
we’ll open Seda Davao in February, and then after that, Holiday Inn will open
this March,” Mr. Jalandoni said.
Seda,
formerly Kukun, is Ayala Land’s wholly owned boutique hotel brand. After
launching Seda Bonifacio Global City last month, AyalaLand Hotels and Resorts
said it planned to open Seda hotels in CdO, Davao, and Laguna from the end of
2012 to next year.
The 349-room
Holiday Inn and Suites Makati in Ayala Center, meanwhile, is part of Ayala
Land’s ongoing five-year redevelopment of Ayala Center in a bid to transform
the five-hectare district into an integrated, mixed-use complex.
Ayala Land
now targets to end 2015 with as many as 4,000 rooms in order to cash in on the
country’s tourism potentials.
“We’re aiming
for 3,000 to 4,000 units (rooms) in the next two years.
This is for
both hotels and resorts. Some of this we’re still planning, and we haven’t
announced all,” Mr. Jalandoni told reporters separately last Friday.
“Our biggest
challenge is access to properties and infrastructure, but it’s good that the
government is very supportive in these areas,” Mr. Jalandoni added. “We’re
bullish because of the economy, and the government is very helpful right now in
promoting tourism…”
Ayala Land
shares lost 75 centavos to P25.85 apiece on Friday last week. -- F. J. G. de la
Fuente
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