By Louella D. Desiderio (The
Philippine Star) | Updated October 15, 2013 - 12:00am
CEBU, Philippines – The Carlson
Rezidor Hotel Group and SM Hotels and Conventions Corp. (SMHCC) have signed an
agreement to open the P500 million 150-room Park Inn by Radisson in Clark in
Pampanga in 2016.
SMHCC president Elizabeth Sy told
reporters yesterday the new mid-scale hotel, which will be adjacent to the
existing SM City Clark and within the Clark Freeport Zone, is the first of the
10 Park Inn hotels being planned by both Carlson Rezidor and SMHCC within the
decade.
“We’ve been discussing we want a
rollout of Park Inns. These Park Inns will have to be where the malls are,” she
said.
Carlson Rezidor president for Asia
Pacific Simon Barlow added that apart from being located close to a mall, they
would want the Park Inn hotel to be near a meetings and conventions venue as
such generates demand for an accommodation facility.
The two groups have identified the
Mall of Asia in Pasay City, North EDSA in Quezon City and Iloilo City as
potential sites for the upcoming Park Inns.
Sy said SMHCC would need until next
month to identify other potential locations.
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This, as she noted that the locations
need to be evaluated carefully.
“We study the demographics, the
market. You’d be surprised that some of the cities that you’d think would be
potential ones, don’t turn out to be, (so) we have to back-off,” she said.
She also said that each Park Inn hotel
would have between 150 to 200 rooms.
Barlow said there is potential to
expand the Park Inn hotel brand here as the government aims to increase not
just foreign tourist arrivals, but domestic travel as well.
“The combination of those three
components, the mall, the SMX (convention center) and then the hotel, makes an
enormous sense when the country is opening up its domestic travel profile,” he
said.
He also said that as Carlson Rezidor
aims to expand in Asia Pacific to have a total of 200 hotels by 2018 in the
region, the Philippines is seen as an important market given the growing
population, improving income of individuals as well as the increased spending
for infrastructure which are all seen to encourage travel.
“I’d like to think one of the
cornerstones of our growth in five years time would be the Philippines. We’ve
targeted the big population countries of Asia (such as) India, China,
Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand. These five countries are the countries we are
targeting very strongly and those five countries represent the largest
populations in the region today,” he said.
Carlson Rezidor currently has two
hotels in the country under its partnership with SMHCC.
In September 2010, Carlson Rezidor
established the first Radisson Blu hotel in Asia Pacific, Radisson Blu Cebu
with SMHCC.
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