Nustar Hotel in Cebu set for December opening

Roel Constantino (left) and Trevor Hammond —Photos from Nustar Resort and Casino

CEBU CITY—Robinsons Land Corp. (RLC) is set to unveil its second ultra-luxury hotel here, adding another piece to a P30-billion venture package meant to boost the tourism and gaming industries in Central Visayas.

Roel Constantino, Nustar Resort and Casino general manager for hotels, told reporters on Friday that the “ultra-luxury” Nustar Hotel would be open for a soft launch in December, with 223 additional hotel rooms for the eponymous entertainment complex.

“The intention was to start and build upon the holiday market and then carry on from there,” Constantino said.

Currently, only the five-star Fili Hotel, which includes a casino floor, and Nustar Mall are operational within the P30-billion Nustar complex.

By 2027, Nustar Resort will also open the 383-room Grand Summit Hotel, bringing the facility’s room count to nearly a thousand from three hotels.

Since the complex was opened two years ago, it has welcomed both mass gamers and junket operators, according to Trevor Hammond, Nustar senior vice president for gaming operations.

These segments each accounts for half of gross gaming revenues, Hammond said, adding that their market was predominantly Filipino and then Koreans.

Low-cost carrier Cebu Pacific in 2022 launched daily flights to Seoul from Cebu City, the gateway to the country’s second-busiest metropolis. This has helped boost their Korean market, according to Hammond.

To accommodate the possible influx of gaming patrons—possibly VIPs and mass markets from other Southeast Asian countries—that will come from Nustar Hotel’s upcoming launch, Hammond said they had at least three floors still open for casino expansion.

“We’re still actively in search of new business from various regions,” the SVP pointed out. “There are Southeast Asian countries such as Singapore, Malaysia and Vietnam with a lot of potential guests.”

The Nustar casino currently occupies 21,000 square meters with 1,000 gaming machines and 150 tables.

Earlier this month, developer RLC announced plans to spend P10 billion to build new upscale projects in Luzon and Cebu.

Planned projects included Fili Hotel in Quezon City and Grand Summit in Pangasinan. They are part of expansion plans outside the Visayas.

Constantino said that they were looking at Quezon City as the next Fili Hotel destination due to its growing market, especially after billionaire Enrique Razon, through Bloomberry Resorts Corp., opened Solaire North in May. —Meg J. Adonis