The Legend Palawan hotel targets higher occupancy this year.
CELEBRATING its 20th anniversary, Legend Hotel
International Corp.’s (LHIC) Puerto Princesa hotel is targeting to take
advantage of the booming tourism industry in Palawan.
The Legend Palawan (TLP), owned by Wyden King’s LHIC, is offering a new tour package that it expects to attract more tourists.
Puerto Princesa City has seen a 20% increase in tourism arrivals to
1.165 million in 2018, according to the City Tourism Office (CTO).
Minerva S. Sembria, general manager of The Legend Palawan said 60% of
the hotel’s guests are local travelers, while foreigners account for
the rest.
She said the hotel saw 42% occupancy rate in 2018, and hopes to
increase this to 60% with the addition of the new tour package called
Roam.
“We’re expecting 60% occupancy rate with the new products,” she told reporters last week.
The Roam tour packages include room accommodations, island tours and transportation services.
“We’re expecting that to be in traction as we market our new
products. They had the perception that the hotel was old that’s why last
year we focused on renovating our rooms. This year we are also looking
at renovating the facade and also the common areas. We started with the
rooms because we felt that would give the convenience immediately to the
guests,” Celine Marie L. King, chief operating officer of LHIC, said.
Seeing the need for change, the company decided to renovate TLP’s 91
rooms last year. The new rooms designed by Wilfrid Magcase were unveiled
earlier this year. The other areas, including the hotel facade, is up
for renovation next year.
With the positive outlook on Puerto Princesa, hotel officials also hope to expand its services to cater to the guests’ demands.
“If the market demand is going to increase, we have another building
just beside us that we can add just 20-30 more rooms. We will see this
year if that will pan through but we’re hopeful and we are encouraged
that the tourism in Puerto Princesa will keep going up,” Ms. King noted.
The management is also looking into offering outdoor recreation
activities for guests, and putting up floating or treetop villas.
“The idea is to get all of those running in the next three years
because our focus right now is to complete our amenities for our beach
experience… but the goal is we want to do it in comfort,” Ms. King said.
“That’s the direction and hopefully in a few years’ time we will be able to get all of that,” she added.
