Hotelier takes on task to grow Aruga

Bernardo Godinez is not yet done with his life’s work

Long-time hotelier Bernardo Godinez has an extensive experience in operations, management and even rescue operations.

Over his four-decade career, the senior vice president for hotel and leisure for Rockwell Hotels and Leisure Management Corp. and General Manager of Aruga Hotels spent 28 years in Thailand working in various properties for a local hotel chain and a multinational group.

Before he returned to the Philippines, he served as hospitality director of development hotels under the BTS Group Company Limited, Thailand’s mass transit company.

Godinez has a track record in reorganization, improving revenues, increasing hotel brand awareness and boosting staff morale.

While hoteliers think of slowing down after 60, Godinez still has his hands full. He runs the serviced apartments of 113-unit Aruga in Makati, units that double as public accommodation rooms at Joya residential condominium in Rockwell and the 80-unit Aruga at The Grove Pasig.

“Aruga is the Tagalog word for ‘nurture.’ We’re using that as our dictum wherein you are coming home, and we are going to take care of you. You will have the comforts that you are looking for,” he says.

Godinez points out that Aruga’s location in a Rockwell development is a selling plus. Both The Grove and Rockwell Makati are self-contained communities where security is priority; streets are pedestrian-friendly; parking spaces are ample and greenery dot the terrain. In Makati, guests appreciate the proximity to the mall.

“You don’t want to go out. It’s like being in a resort,” he says.

Both serviced apartments are situated just off the central business districts of Makati and Ortigas where guests can experience some quiet time from the rush.

Still, the locations are accessible to other parts of the metropolis.

“The privacy and location are unique in their own right,” says Godinez.

As a competitive edge, Aruga provides complimentary shuttle service to Makati CBD or BGC for corporate clients and long-staying guests.

Aruga also has established corporate clients from multinationals and business process outsourcing firms.

Families who enjoy so-called staycations find the unit sizes at Joya Tower and Aruga ideal for their needs.

“In Makati, families use the units or the mall as a meeting point. That’s the convenience of being at the Rockwell Center,” says Godinez.

Moreover, he is overseeing the construction of the 254-room Aruga Hotel Makati, the ballroom and chapel of which are targeted for completion by year-end.

To open in 2019, the full-serviced hotel is conceived as an urban resort in Makati.

Likewise, he revealed plans for a resort-hotel in Mactan, Cebu, by 2022.

Working overseas

Godinez has always set his sights on the hotel industry.

After acquiring a degree in hotel and restaurant management from Orange Coast College in California, he returned to the Philippines and worked in several departments, from tours and travels, rooms division, food and beverage, management and operations, in international five-star hotels around Metro Manila.

In 1988, he left for Thailand, serving as executive assistant manager at Siam Bayshore Resort in the resort city of Pattaya and was later to transferred as resident manager to then newly opened Siam City Hotel.

Although local independent companies undertook groundbreaking efforts to create unique hotels that appeal to new markets, Godinez missed working in a multinational chain which offered continuous learning and greater opportunities for advancement.

Major hotel chains such as Accor Asia had developed several brands that catered to various markets and this appealed to Godinez.

“With Accor, you move around to experience the brand,” he says. The chain assigned him to 11 properties ranging from the luxury brand Sofitel to the budget hotel, Ibis. He was promoted to general manager of the upper mid-range brand Novotel in two resorts in Rim Pae Yong and Samui.

He also experienced running a compact hotel, Ibis in Jakarta, Indonesia and was later posted to Laos to fine-tune Novotel in Vientiane.

Tsunami

One of the turning points in his career was the disruption of the development of Sofitel Villa and Spa in Phi Phi, Thailand, where he was the GM.

On Dec. 26, a tsunami triggered by an earthquake in the Indian Ocean overwhelmed the coastal areas of western Thailand, claiming the lives of nearly five thousand. The property in Phi Phi was not damaged since it was on high ground. However, Sofitel in the exclusive resort town, Khao Lak, and the other resorts around the coast were savaged by waves that had the impact of the Hiroshima atomic bomb.

Accor employees from different properties volunteered to go to Khao Lak, where the tsunami waves were the highest, to help transfer guests to sister hotels in Bangkok.

Godinez and a team of six helped the government team identify the belongings of the guests, put them in bags and inform the embassies about the whereabouts of guests.

Godinez describes the experience as very humbling and a wake-up call to always be prepared for a disaster.

As Thailand bounced back, he was asked to manage the all-suite Grand Sukhumvit by Sofitel and at the same time oversee the renovation of Grand Mercure Park Avenue Hotel. In his final year with Accor, he yet again held a dual position for the Grande Mercure Suites Bangkok and V Villas in Hua Hin.

With the BTS Group, he met with architects, designers, engineers for its hotels that were under construction.

Looking back at his 28-year stint in Thailand, he saw how it progressed with state-of-the art infrastructure and how Bangkok, once the champion of traffic gridlock, solved the problem by building a comprehensive mass transit system. He also witnessed how tourism became a major contributor to the GDP and how it kept the economy afloat in tough times.

“The Thais are creative and strong risk takers. Let’s give it a try. If it doesn’t work, we’ll try something else. The mentality doesn’t vacillate like shall we or shall we not? The Thais have adapted to how the international market has changed. They are very savvy in everything. I feel the same here, coming home in September last year. Filipinos are also on the go,” says Godinez.

Personalize

His international experience taught him to understand people by putting himself in their situation, whether they are guests or staffers.

“I have my own management style on how things would go—organization procedures, policies and discipline. In the end, it’s putting people first. If the staff is happy, then guests are happy and the owner is happy,” says the hotelier.

Godinez was contemplating on retirement in the Philippines until he met Nestor Padilla, president and CEO of Rockwell Land Corp. The developer had just formed a new company for its hospitality projects.

Barely a year into his post, Godinez says he is kept busy with the two Aruga properties that are posting a healthy occupancy rate of 70 to 75 percent.

He explains, “We are highlighting that we are a Filipino management company. Aruga is a Filipino brand that expresses personalization and warmth— traits of the Filipino. Filipinos have a beautiful smile that can change attitudes in a second.”