Published on
01 May 2013 [ manilatimes.net ]
Written by
MADELAINE B. MIRAFLOR REPORTER
Microtel Inns
and Suites (Pilipinas) Inc., a Philippine Investment Management Inc. company,
is looking to spend around P1.1 billion in building three hotels this year as
part of the Phinma’s intention to boost its presence in the tourism sector.
Jose Mari del
Rosario, Microtel president and chief executive officer, said that for this
year, the company will be spending approximately P1.1 billion for three hotels
that will be built within the year.
“On average,
we are going to spend P1.1 billion this year in building three hotels. These
hotels are bigger than our usual hotels,” he said.
Del Rosario
also said that, each of the hotels can have up to 150 rooms with a construction
cost of P2.2 million a room.
“As I’ve
said, each location is a different investment but on the average we will be
spending P2.2 million pesos,” he said, adding that that the company’s minimum
investment cost a hotel is P150 million.
“It can be 60
rooms it can be a 150 rooms, it really depends. On the average, 60 rooms per
location will be the smallest [hotel that Microtel will build],” del Rosario
said.
He also
specified the company doesn’t intend to cater to the high-end market yet,
because it want to focus on building hotels with affordable room rates.
“We are
always targeting on affordable room rates,” del Rosario said, specifying that
as of now, their room rates cost about P2,910 per night.
Del Rosario
further said that Microtel would like to remain focused on the domestic market
because it is very stable, rather than concentrating on the foreign arrivals.
“Though we
have two resorts in Boracay and Puerto Princesa, which are largely dependent on
the foreign tourist arrivals, we’d still like to focus on the domestic market,”
he said.
According to
del Rosario, the domestic market is very stable because most of the people
included in this market are businessmen, who go around the country not for
leisure but for business.
“These
businessmen go to different places, go to our hotels not for leisure but for
business, so they tend to go to budget hotels like hours,” he added.
Microtel is
the hotel and leisure arm of listed holding company Phinma. Phinma Properties
recently announced that it is allocating the bulk of its P3.9-billion capital
expenditure this year to its energy unit, Trans-Asia Oil and Energy Development
Corp. (TA Oil).
In total,
P3.6 billion is planned to be spent for TA Oil’s investment contribution for
South Luzon Thermal Energy Corp. unit 2.
For Microtel,
Phinma President Ramon del Rosario Jr. earlier said that it intends to have 25
units by 2016, specifying that they currently have 10 operating units and
another three hotels are set to open this year.
He added that
the new hotels will be in Coron, Palawan, Bohol, Tacloban and Dumaguete, while
some areas are still under evaluation.
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