CEBU Landmasters Inc. (CLI) on Tuesday said it signed an agreement with The Ascott Ltd. for the management of Citadines Bacolod, the first hotel in the city to carry an international brand.
The company said its unit Capitaine Inc. and CLI Bacolod Hotels Inc. signed a service management deal with Ascott to for the development of CLI’s 200-room serviced residence.
The building is the company’s fourth project with the Ascott, a residence operator, and is expected to boost the Cebu-based developer’s hotel portfolio to 969 rooms.
“CLI sees a lot of opportunities in Bacolod,” said Jose Soberano III, the company’s president.
“Our growth in this city, and in the rest of VisMin, will hinge on tourism as well as the IT-BPM industry—both drivers of the region’s economy,” he said.
“With its track record and deep knowledge of the VisMin market, we are happy to partner with them again for our fourth service- residence project and our first in Bacolod City,” Arthur G. Gindap, Ascott’s regional general manager for the Philippines and Thailand., said in a statement.
Citadines Bacolod will have unit sizes ranging from 25 square meters to 60 sq m and will have a 1,000-sq-m grand ballroom, parking spaces and an amenity deck on the third floor featuring a swimming pool, gym, game room and restaurants.
Jose Pedro Recio of Rchitects Inc. will design the service residence that will rise on a prime 4,501-sq-m lot along Lacson Street in front of MesaVirre Garden Residences, the company’s first project in the city.
Construction of Citadines Bacolod will start by the last quarter of this year, and it is targeted to open by 2021.
“There is so much potential to cater not only to the tourism industry but also the MICE [meetings, incentives, conventions and exhibits] market in Bacolod,” Soberano said, adding the company expects the property to be the leading provider of accommodations in the area when it opens.
He said during weekdays, business travelers related to Bacolod’s growing information technology-business process management industry are also expected to boost hotel occupancy.
Its optimism is further supported by the city government’s plan to build more tourism infrastructure and mount projects, such as a coastal boulevard, conservation and restoration of the public plaza, Sum-ag River development and the Bacolod Nature Park.
The company said it is set to hit P5.3-billion year-end target revenue, 35 percent higher than last year’s, and will spend P8.8 billion in capital expenditures for land acquisition and project development this year.
It said the company will launch 20 more projects this year across the Visayas-Mindanao region to bring its diversified portfolio of residential subdivision, residential condominium, offices, hotels, retail and estate to a total of 66.
The existing projects now in different stages of development are in seven key cities that include Cebu, Mandaue, Dumaguete, Bacolod, Iloilo, Cagayan de Oro and Davao.
It plans to expand its footprint to the municipality of Panglao in Bohol and the VisMin cities of General Santos, Butuan, Ormoc and Roxas.