246 more rooms for Crimson to attract Mice
After launching a resort targeted at millennials, the Filinvest Group is expanding the room portfolio of its flagship resort property on Mactan Island.
During the weekend, Filinvest Hospitality announced it will be adding 246 suites to Crimson Resort and Spa Cebu, bringing the total room inventory to 536 hotel rooms by 2020.
James Montenegro, country manager for Chroma Hospitality, said the company owned by the Gotianuns will invest roughly P2.5 billion to P3 billion to facilitate the expansion project.
Chroma is Filinvest’s hotel management company.
Crimson Suites will be a two-tower, mid-rise project that will offer at least 50-square-meter room sizes, with most of the rooms facing the ocean. It will also have a coffee shop, swimming pool, and an executive lounge.
This new project will also have a bigger ballroom that can accommodate up to 1,500 guests, if set up as a cocktail event.
Montenegro said they are boosting Crimson’s image not just as a leisure destination but also as a meetings, incentive, convention, exhibition (Mice) choice in Mactan Island.
“We are trying to balance what we are offering in Mactan,” said Montenegro, adding that this would fill in the gap in terms of Mactan’s tourism venue offerings.
With the addition of this ballroom, the whole resort can now handle up to 2,000 guests.
The Filinvest group expects to hit its goal of having 5,000 hotel rooms owned or managed by 2022. At present, the group has 3,000 rooms, either existing or in various stages of development.
Keeping it different
To keep up with tougher competition in the hospitality sector, Montenegro said the company is putting in distinctive offerings to remain relevant and attractive.
“We are constantly upgrading our products, especially in the food and beverage offerings, to keep up with the times,” he said.
Increasing direct flights to Cebu from Japan, Korea and China have been beneficial to Cebu’s hospitality sector as well the vibrant domestic market that has grown in the last three years.
Montenegro said that as long as the government would be able to put in place all the support infrastructure, tourism investments would continue to rise.
Crimson enjoys an average occupancy of 88 percent, year to date.