AYALA LAND Hotels and Resorts Corp. (AHRC) said it is investing around P15 billion to add 2,464 rooms in nine properties of its wholly-owned Seda Hotels over the next couple of years.
“Our goal is to be the leading Filipino hotel brand catering to global travelers in the Philippines,” AHRC Group Director of Sales and Marketing Melissa Carlos said during the company’s media briefing on Wednesday.
Since 2012, Seda has already built a total room inventory of 817 to date across five existing properties, namely, Seda Centrio in Cagayan de Oro City, Seda Abreeza in Davao City, Seda Nuvali in Laguna, Seda Atria in Iloilo City and Seda BGC (Bonifacio Global City) in Taguig.
With the establishment of new accommodation facilities of the Seda brand in other parts of the country, and the expansion of the latter, the company is set to operate 3,281 rooms by 2019.
For this year, Seda Vertis North in Quezon City will open in April, the biggest city hotel in AHRC’s portfolio, with 438 rooms.
“Seda has been successful in highly underserved areas [like this],” the executive said of their decision, as they see a huge business potential there.
For the third quarter of this year, Seda Capitol Central, which will house 154 rooms, will start to operate in Bacolod to meet the projected demand for such a four-star hotel in the Visayas region.
In line with AHRC’s foray into the resort type of business, Seda Lio will be located at the firm’s new tourism estate in El Nido, Palawan.
Targeted to be finished in the last quarter of 2017, this two-floor accommodation facility, with153 rooms, is designed to have a low environmental impact. Also, it will serve as a model for future Seda hotels in other resort locations of the company.
Meanwhile, the pioneering Seda BGC is expanding with a new stand-alone tower to be completed in 2018. It will have 342 rooms, including 48 serviced apartments, and will be connected with the current tower at three levels. It will have an all-day dining outlet capacitated to accommodate 300 persons and function rooms that can seat up to 450 persons.
The next generation of Seda’s city hotels in Makati, Taguig, Cebu and the Manila Bay area, with big capacities from 200 to 350 rooms, will soon be in the pipeline.
Business-wise, all five Seda hotels met their 2016 targets, including Seda Atria, the newest at just a year old, Carlos said.
“Across all our properties, our guest satisfaction scores ranged from 83 percent to 86 percent, which is way above the industry average hovering in the 70s. All our hotels also took the number-one slot in their category in each of their cities,” she said.
Among all the existing properties, Seda BGC best performed, as it posted an average occupancy of 87 percent last year, or far more than the 65-percent industry average occupancy rate of Makati hotels.
Guest-repeat rate across all properties is also high at a rate of 42 percent, more than double the industry average of 15 percent to 20 percent.
The improved business could be attributed to the warm, efficient service rendered by their staff, Carlos said.
Image credits: Nonie Reyes