Waterfront Hotel Davao up for renovation
HOTEL player, Waterfront Insular Hotel Davao, plans to renovate its hotel facilities next year to continuously improve its services and remain competitive in the industry.
Waterfront Davao hotel manager Bryan Yves S. Lasala, in a recent interview with SunStar Davao said that renovation plans include refurbishment of the guest rooms.
“The guest rooms have never undergone major renovations since the 90’s. We still want to keep the character of the property, hopefully we can start next year,” he said.
Other facilities to be improved are the function rooms and the lobby area.
“We want to capitalize on the sudden increase of foot traffic, tourist traffic in Davao City,” Lasala added.
Asked on how the hotel was doing in 2017, Lasala was quick to add that it has been a challenging year, not just for them but for the whole hotel industry.
“This year has been challenging because of what happened in Marawi City and the declaration of martial law in Mindanao, starting May until July, we experienced a decrease in hotel occupancy,” he shared.
However, Lasala said, the industry recovered fast in August.
“Overall, in terms of revenue, occupancy, number of events, this year has been very good to us. We saw the influx and sudden rise of hotel occupancy, we have been averaging for the past two years between 60-65 % but for 2017 we are hitting 72-75 %, about 10-12 percent increase in occupancy,” he said.
On a weekly basis, he bared, two or three days in a week are 100 percent occupied.
He attributed the increase to President Rodrigo Duterte’s election in the presidency.
“Also, the influx of local and international conventions and meetings had contributed a lot to this development,” he said.
From January to September this year, the regional office of the Department of Tourism reported that tourist arrivals in the region reached two million tourists.
“We just have to push Davao more, we need to package Davao with a distinct destination that would make tourists come here, we need to create a package to make people come here,” Lasala said.