ANGELES CITY— A 160-room hotel here designed to serve the growing number of passengers at the Clark airport opened on Feb. 10, reducing accommodation problems during peak seasons.
The 10-story Tune Hotel just at the perimeter of Clark Freeport on Don Juico Avenue is the latest of a chain of hotels sought by tourists from the United Kingdom, Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand.
The Tune Group, a conglomerate co-founded by Tony Fernandes and Kamarudin Meranun, chief executive officer and deputy chief executive officer of AirAsia, respectively, earlier announced its plan to invest $70 million for the construction of seven hotels in the country, said Tune Hotels Chief Executive Officer Mark Lankester.
Gilda Padua, president of the Alliance of Travel and Tours Agencies of Pampanga (ATTAP), said Tune Hotel is an answer to many budget travelers who opt for comfort and convenience.
She said the new hotel “perfectly matches the low-cost carriers that fly from the Clark Airport.”
Lankester said the Tune Hotels chain pioneered the concept of “empowering hotel guests” by giving them the option to pay only for hotel amenities they choose under a “pay-as-you-use” scheme.
He said the common convenience of “five-star beds, power showers, clean environment, 24-hour security and convenient locations” is available at the hotel which opened on the second day of the 17th Hot Air Balloon Fiesta at Clark.
Tourism Regional Director Ronnie Tiotuico said the available 3,000 hotel rooms in Pampanga had been fully booked from February 9-12 during the hot air balloon festival.
He said that arrivals at the Clark airport had consistently increased over the years.
The Tunes Hotel-Angeles is the first in the country, but other Tunes Hotels are soon to open in Cebu City and Ermita, Manila. More are to be constructed in Makati City, Cagayan de Oro City, Quezon City and Parañaque City, Lankester said.
He said the location of Tunes Hotel in this city’s tourist district was planned to be near “tourist attractions, entertainment, food and beverage, and shopping centers.” He said that Tunes Hotel “presents a good opportunity to introduce our brand to the market and offer an alternative to travelers” as he noted that “while the Philippines has a lot of opportunities for leisure tourism, hotel rooms here are still expensive.”
He said at Tune Hotels, guests have more options to save on cost by opting, for instance, not to use the TV set or the air-conditioning unit.
Last year, Tune Hotels was named among the Top 20 Most Innovative Brands by Indonesia’s top marketing communications publication MIX Magazine while Tunes Hotel-Westminster in London was awarded a Certificate of Excellence by the world’s largest travel web site TripAdvisor.com.
