Red Planet hopes to open a new PH hotel yearly

MANILA, Philippines — Red Planet Hotels plans to expand further its portfolio in the Philippines, with the budget hotel brand looking into opening a new site annually starting next year.

Florent Humeau, chief executive officer of Red Planet Hotels, on Friday said they are looking at several prospective areas across the country, including locations in the cities of Iloilo, Davao, Cagayan de Oro and Cebu.

“I hope in the next three, five years, we can open one every year,” Humeau said during a talk with journalists in their hotel at the Bonifacio Global City in Taguig City.

“I think there is a high demand and we see that there is a lot of development. We see that domestic tourism is increasing,” the CEO said, noting that 80 percent of their business is from domestic customers.

Humeau said their hotels have an average occupancy rate of 75 percent today, which indicates it has recovered to the same level before the global outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020.

Market recovery

“It took a little bit longer for the economic market [to recover], but now we are quite, quite happy,” he said, adding that they saw a 20-percent growth in their business last year.

READ: PH hotel sector: onward and upward

To date, there are currently 14 Red Planet hotels in the Philippines, 10 of which are in Metro Manila.

The company will hold a grand opening event for its latest and biggest 245-room hotel in Taguig, the Red Planet BGC The Fort, at the end of this month.

The company executive said that they are also venturing into franchising, adding that interested parties can already submit their applications.

Despite the growing domestic tourism fueling their growth, Humeau said that international tourism is still hampering their growth since this segment has not yet recovered to pre-pandemic levels.

“International tourism, it’s not getting as fast as we could see. We don’t see the revenge travel in the Philippines that I can see in Thailand, in Japan, and Indonesia, for example,” he said.

The CEO added that they also have some concerns over a portion of local tourists opting to go to overseas destinations over local spots due to cheaper airfares and other costs.