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LEGAZPI
CITY, Albay—HSAI Raintree Management Co. is expanding
its reach throughout the Philippines with the recent
inauguration of Hotel Venezia, a business hotel in
Legazpi City, and the soon-to-open Discovery Bay Misibis,
a luxury resort in Cagraray Island, Albay.
Both
properties are expected to give a major boost to the
tourist arrivals in the Bicol region, said Tourism
Secretary Joseph “Ace” Durano. In an interview with
select reporters at the sidelines of the blessing of the
resort on August 8, Durano said with the recent opening
of Hotel Venezia, and with Discovery Bay Misibis fully
operational next year, tourist arrivals in the region
are projected to “grow by 10 percent,” hitting the
1-million mark in 2009.
Both
properties are owned by low-key Bicolano businessman
Elizaldy Co, who made his fortune in the construction
business. He is chairman of the Sunwest Group of
Companies, which hired HSAI Raintree to manage both
properties. HSAI Raintree—a hospitality-management
firm—is a partnership between the Tiu family of the JKTC
Group of Companies and veteran hotelier Annabella
Santos-Wisniewski’s Raintree Inc.
HSAI
Raintree also manages the Discovery Suites along ADB
Avenue in Pasig City, Discovery Country Suites on
Tagaytay City and Discovery Shores in Boracay Island.
These properties are owned by the Discovery Leisure Co.,
a unit of the Tiu family’s JKTC Group.
Raising
the bar for Bicol hotels
The
40-room Hotel Venezia, located in a subdivision owned by
Co called Renaissance Gardens in Legazpi City, is seen
raising the bar for the business hotel market in Bicol
with its superior facilities, luxury amenities and
professional service. First opened in July 2004, the
hotel underwent extensive refurbishment under the
guidance of HSAI Raintree, which took over management in
June 2008.
Its
guest rooms feature an LCD TV, Wi-Fi connection at the
business center, 24-hour room service, function rooms
and a restaurant called the Café San Marco.
A number
of its rooms offer a stunning view of the Mayon Volcano,
while the hotel is centrally located, making it
accessible to a number of natural tourist destinations
within Albay and the other provinces in Bicol.
“Hotel
Venezia will introduce a new level of service and style
that will appeal to both business and leisure travelers
in this booming city,” said Wisniewski. “The hotel
creates an environment that enables guests to stay
connected whether they are doing business or even while
playing a round of golf at Legazpi Golf Club in Tabaco,”
she added.
The
hotel is only two minutes away from the airport and is
close to several business and government offices. It
offers complimentary shuttle service to and from the
airport, as well as package tours of nearby tourist
destinations.
Luxury
villas, condotels
Separately, construction is ongoing at the P1.6-billion
Discovery Bay Misibis, with the first phase scheduled
for completion in time for the resort’s soft opening
this December. The first phase will feature 38 luxury
villas, seven of which will be by the beach fronting the
Albay Gulf, and the rest by two pools.
Co said
after December, he will start constructing three-story
resort units, which are projected to be finished by
2010. It will have a total of 100 rooms and occupy 20
hectares of the entire 400-ha. Misibis property.
Discovery Bay Misibis is actually the second phase of
Co’s real-estate project in the area under his Misibis
Land Co. The first phase, dubbed Misibi Residential
Estate, commenced in 2005 with the sale of 300 lots to
individual home-
owners, mostly Filipino-Americans for private
development.
A third
phase is the construction of separate condotel units to
be dubbed Amalfi Condotels. Project costs have yet to be
determined for this development.
According to Wisniewski, Discovery Bay Misibis has just
been accredited by the Small Luxury Hotels (SLH) of the
World, the second Philippine hotel to be included in the
exclusive list of small hotels with their own luxurious
touches and individual charms. The first SLH in the
Philippines is Discovery Shores Boracay. The SLH
membership covers 440 hotels in more than 70 countries,
offering prospective guests centralized reservations and
booking system to any of its member-properties around
the world.
Major
waterfront development
Another
Co property, the P1.6-billion Embarcadero, will be
managed by Wisniewski’s own company, Foodparks by
Raintree Inc. The Embarcadero, located at the Legazpi
Port, is a major waterfront development seen to become a
destination for both local and international visitors to
the Bicol region.
Owned by
Co’s Embarcadero Land Ventures, the Embarcadero is
designed as a one-stop dining, shopping, entertainment
and leisure destination anchored on what is bruited to
be the “largest e-commerce hub” in the region. It will
be home to information technology companies,
business-process outsourcing companies, corporate
offices and a 500-seat training center. Slated to open
in 2008, the Embarcadero’s masterplan includes a future
boutique waterfront hotel and convention center.
It will
also feature The Market Place, a fish market with local
food stalls to cook the fresh catch of the day, which
can be enjoyed along the boardwalk which has a view of
the majestic Mount Mayon.
Meanwhile, Bicol’s tourist arrivals and receipts have
been steadily rising as more foreign tourists learn to
appreciate the region as a primary tourist destination
in the country. “What is remarkable is the 114-percent
jump in foreign tourists in 2007, primarily due to what
we call the ‘three icons of Bicol’: the whale shark [butanding]
in Donsol, Sorsogon; wakeboarding in Camarines Sur; and
the Mayon Volcano,” said Secretary Durano.
Camarines Sur alone accounted for some 51 percent of
897,680 total arrivals in Bicol last year, up 41 percent
from the 637,127 recorded in 2006, data from the
Department of Tourism’s (DOT) Bicol regional office
showed.
Tourism
jobs for ex-NPAs
But the
establishment of Discovery Bay Misibis, he said, is
expected to attract a more upscale crowd with higher
spending power, pushing tourist receipts in the region
to reach P530 million. The resort is accessible via
one-hour land travel from Legazpi City and soon, via
20-minute fastcraft, from the Legazpi Port.
In the
first quarter of the year, 256,746 tourists arrived in
Bicol, with 35,258 accounting for foreign travelers, and
the rest domestic tourists, including balikbayan
(returning Filipinos), according to DOT’s Region 5
office. “We were surprised that in the first quarter
alone, tourist receipts already reached P300 million.
The more the foreign tourists, the better for the local
economy,” Durano said.
With
this remarkable performance, the Bicol region, Durano
said, is expected to hit its tourist arrivals target
this year of 974,000, up 8 percent from last year’s
898,000. Tourist receipts this year are also projected
to reach P481 million from P444 million in 2007.
According to Maria Ravanilla, regional director of the
DOT, about 318,000 jobs were generated last year with
the expansion in tourism opportunities. She added that
“even former insurgents of the New Peoples’ Army have
turned to tourism,” becoming tour guides or whale shark
spotters because these jobs pay decent wages. |
