Posted on
March 24, 2013 09:44:13 PM [ BusinessWorld Online ]
DAVAO CITY --
SM Hotels and Conventions Corp., the tourism arm of SM Prime Holdings Inc.,
plans to open a total of five hotels in the country in the next five years that
will carry the Park Inn brand, a top company official said here on Friday last
week.
SM Hotels President Elizabeth T. Sy said at
the press conference for the opening of Park Inn by Radisson Davao that all the
planned hotels will rise beside SM shopping malls.
Ms. Sy said
although the plan has yet to be finalized, among the areas being considered are
SM shopping malls in Clark Freeport Zone, SM North Edsa, as well as those in
the cities of Bacolod and Iloilo.
Ms. Sy
estimated that the company will spend at least P500 million for each hotel. All
five hotels are expected to have a total of 1,000 rooms.
Among the
factors that will be will considered, she said, is the volume of business
travelers in these areas, noting there must “be that excitement” that will
justify spending on such facilities.
The Park Inn
brand is under Carlson Rezidor Hotel Group, which signed a 17-year management
agreement with Ms. Sy’s company. The Park Inn by Radisson Davao is a 204-room
mid-level hotel with six junior suites.
The company
invested about P750 million in building the hotel, which is beside not only SM
Lanang Premier, touted to be the biggest SM shopping mall in Mindanao, so far,
that opened in December last year, but also the 5,000-seater SMX Convention
Center.
Ms. Sy said
that when the mall still in the drawing board, her brother, SM Prime President
Hans T. Sy, suggested that the group also put up a hotel beside it, considering
there was also a convention center that was to be built in the 10-hectare area
which used to be known as Lanang Golf and Country Club of the Dakudao family.
Simon C.
Barlow, president for Asia-Pacific of Carlson Rezidor, said his company was
optimistic on prospects for more Park Inn hotels that will cater to the
country’s growing tourism industry.
In his
presentation in the same event, Mr. Barlow estimated that the gap between
accommodations and demand -- both foreign and local -- will rise to about
76,000 rooms by 2016 from some 39,000 last year.
“My vision is
to have a Park Inn in every SM mall and there are 45 SM malls -- although we
don’t have plans for that at this point, but that is I think what we could do,”
said Mr. Barlow.
He added,
however, that there is already a “strategic agreement” on the next four hotels
that have yet to be built. “We bring brand, we bring people or expertise and we
bring connectivity to the global market,” he added, explaining that the company
gets paid for the brand and gets a share of revenues.
SM Prime
shares lost 20 centavos or 1.09% to close at P18.20 apiece on Friday last week
from P18.40 each last Thursday. -- CQF
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