Megaworld to open 2 hotels

MANILA, Philippines–Listed Megaworld Corp. is opening two new hotels this year in its townships in Metro Manila and Iloilo, a company statement showed.

Richmonde Hotel Iloilo, which will occupy eight levels of the 12-story Richmonde Tower in the 72-hectare Iloilo Business Park in Mandurriao, Iloilo City, is set to open in June this year. The business hotel will be the first Richmonde Hotel outside Metro Manila and will have 151 guest rooms.

By the second half of the year, another hotel will open in the 25-hectare Newport City, a township project where the Resorts World Manila integrated casino project is located.

The Belmont Luxury Hotel Newport will stand 10-story high with 480 rooms, the statement showed.

The hotel’s amenities include pocket gardens and landscaped atrium, 24-hour fitness center and workout area, lap pool with in-water pool lounge, paved sunbathing lounge, massage deck and seating area, pool spa, steam and sauna as well as its own medical clinic.

“We have been experiencing an increasing demand for hotel rooms in Newport City because of its proximity to the Ninoy Aquino International Airport,” Francisco Canuto, senior vice president of Megaworld, said in the statement.

Last year, Megaworld chair Andrew Tan announced that the real estate giant along with sister company Travellers International Hotel Group would be building hotels around the country with a total of 12,000 rooms.

In the next five years, both companies will be making available 10,000 new hotel rooms, all of which will be in Megaworld’s township developments.

“By the year 2020, we envision our group to be the largest hotel developer in the Philippines,” Tan said.

At present, both Megaworld and Travellers International have built 1,900 rooms in its existing hotels: Richmonde Hotel Ortigas; Eastwood Richmonde Hotel; Marriott Hotel Manila, Maxims Hotel and Remington Hotel in Newport City; and Fairways and Bluewater in Boracay Newcoast.–Miguel R. Camus