Vista Land keen on tourism, ind’l dev’t

Vista Land & Lifescapes, one of the country’s leading integrated real estate companies, is planning to grow its tourism and hospitality business while looking into the development of industrial estates.

“We’re venturing into tourism, as you know, and eventually, we’ll probably have some of industrial also,” said Vista Land President Manuel Paolo A. Villar in an interview.

Villar said they are building hotels as part of their mixed use developments while looking at integrated tourism projects to add to their existing residential, commercial, and office leasing businesses.

“We’re looking at the next three years for hotels,” said Villar adding that “we’re very bullish on tourism. As you know the Chinese has been more open to come to the Philippines. I think there have been more and will be more Chinese tourist arrivals in the Philippines, so you’re looking at the big growth in tourism.”

He also noted that, “a number of the infrastructure government is building include airports. You’re going to see an increase in tourist arrivals. Even some of the less well-known tourist areas are becoming more well-known.”

“We’ll have hotels in a number of our areas. Definitely our existing bigger communi-cities, they’ll have hotels. Some of our bigger developments like Evia City will have hotels. Some of our sites in the tourist areas will also have hotels,” he said.

Vista Land is planning a hotel as part of Costa Vista Boracay which will have medium rise residential units and a convention center. Villar said the hotels will be a combination of company managed brands as well as joint ventures. The Villar family currently owns Mella Hotel although this is not under Vista Land.

“Well it’s combined. And we’ll have other hotels. So we’re also looking at third party partners. It depends, like the hotel might be owned by Vista Land but managed by somebody else. It will be a mix. Some will be even owned by others,” he explained.

Villar said they are also open to integrated resorts and the company is open to gaming companies. “Not necessarily Vista Land. I’m not sure Vista Land would be a gaming company but as a lessor as someone leasing to gaming company or buildings with gaming, it’s possible,” he said.

Meanwhile, Villar said “we’re looking at a little industrial projects, economic zones, in some of our bigger cities. We’re looking into that. We’re looking for potential partners for that.”

However, he said Vista Land has yet to have an industrial estate project. “I’m just saying that, looking forward five years, we will do some industrial,” Villar said.