THE Philippines posted a record 13,939 rooms last year, a 9.9-percent increase from the 12,683 recorded in year earlier, Trent M. Frankum, general manager of CB Richard Ellis Philippines, Inc. (CBRE) said.

But Frankum also said these additional hotel rooms are not enough to meet the growing demand for more rooms.

Citing the reports of the Philippine Travel Agencies’ Association (PTAA), he said the country has diverted over half-a-million foreign visitors to other destinations in 2006 because of facility problems in key tourist spots in the country. Owing to lack of hotel rooms and flights into the domestic tourist destinations, the tourism industry registered an income loss of $400 million.

“The accommodation capacity of Boracay and Cebu is maximized, which has become a constraint to growth and is contrary to the goals of government to increase the tourist arrivals,” Frankum said.

Although 2006 had been a good year for Philippine tourism, Frankum said “the steadily upbeat performance since 2004 must be sustained through the upgrading of infrastructure, tourism facilities and services in main tourism destinations.”

And something obviously is being done as the country is getting investments for new hotel projects.

For one, Ayala Hotels, a subsidiary of Ayala Land, partnered with Kingdom Hotels for a $153-million hotel complex within the Ayala Center. This is equivalent to 300 rooms (for Fairmont Hotel), 30 suites (for Raffles Hotel) and 189 Raffles-branded private residences to service the Makati CBD market.

Meanwhile, SM Investments is in the thick of two hotel developments and has joined forces with Carlson Hotel Asia Pacific and Accor to develop an aggregate of 350 and 400 hotel rooms for Manila and Cebu.

For the emerging business district of Alabang, the success of Bellevue Manila Hotel in Northgate Cyberzone prompted its owners to build a third 25-story tower that will provide an additional 198 deluxe rooms, at a project cost of P1.05 billion.

Other hotel projects in the pipeline are the Eastwood Park Hotel & Residential Suites, a 38-story hotel and condotel project on top of a mall complex at the heart of Eastwood City, and the proposed Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts’ six-star hotel on the 1.2-hectare property of BCDA in the Fort Bonifacio Global City.

With the marked increase in tourist arrivals in the Visayas, three international hotel and resort chains plan to set up facilities in the region—the Banyan Tree Hotels and Resorts, Raffles Hotels and Resorts and Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts.

Future hotel developments also include the 616-room Imperial Palace Waterpark Resort and Spa, a Korean-Filipino venture that broke ground in July 2006 in Maribago, Lapu-Lapu City, Cebu.

“We are getting a lot of investment inquiries for hotels, resorts and even golf courses from European, Middle Eastern and Korean investors,” Frankum said.

Now, the main challenge for the property industry is to be able to present to these investors various options, which meet their investment criteria.

He added that from year 2000 to 2006, foreign travelers grew at a compounded annual rate of 20.8 percent.

“Tourist arrival in 2006 reached 2.84 million, up by 8.4 percent versus the 2.62 million in 2005,” he noted.

Frankum said the Koreans topped the list of foreign visitors to the country last year, overtaking the Americans and the Japanese. According to PTAA, the number of direct flights from Seoul to the Philippines averages 22 to 30 a week.

Information from: www.manilatimes.net

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