Tourism boom boosts hotel sector

TO FURTHER accommodate the growing number of visitors, more hotels are slated to be constructed within Newport City by 2016. Metro Manila’s stock of hotel rooms will expand by 22.9 percent year-on-year to end this year at 21,532 as more property developers invest in tourism, widely deemed as the low-hanging fruit for the domestic economy, property consulting firm Colliers International said.

Metro Manila’s stock of hotel rooms will expand by 22.9 percent year-on-year to end this year at 21,532 as more property developers invest in tourism, widely deemed as the low-hanging fruit for the domestic economy, property consulting firm Colliers International said.

As many as 4,015 new hotel rooms will be added to Metro Manila’s hotel inventory this year, including those to open along Manila Bay at the integrated gaming resorts in Pagcor Entertainment City, envisioned to be the country’s version of the Las Vegas strip casino resorts. From 2014 to 2017, an average 3,700 new hotel rooms will be delivered annually in the metropolis, Colliers said in its second-quarter property report, which aggregates the official pipeline of property developers.

For the first half of this year, Colliers said only 20 percent of additional hotel rooms in the 2014 pipeline had been actually delivered, brought largely by four projects, namely Tune Hotels Ortigas (182), Azumi Boutique Hotel (187), Marco Polo Ortigas (313) and Citadines Salcedo Makati (215).

The property consulting firm said the bulk of the additional hotel inventory would be delivered in the second semester, with close to 1,660 new rooms to be located in Parañaque City. While 75 percent of the rooms will be located in Pagcor City, two others will be located elsewhere.

“One particular project, Go Hotels Parañaque (199 rooms), is expected to attract budget travelers who want to temporarily stay near the airport terminals,” the research said.

For the new rooms to be delivered each year through 2017, 56 percent will be located in Pagcor City while a substantial number will be located in Pasay City, Quezon City and Taguig, the report noted. These three locations are expected to contribute 3,600 rooms that will cater to business travelers, with the majority of the hotels to be operated by international brands.