A peek into the motel business

SHORT-TIME checking in at motels for at least three hours may sometimes be discussed in public by different people in a hushed tone as if a secret that is so embarrassing to be heard by others.

However, the other side of the coin reveals just how this very private industry is actually very successful investing on love and intimacy. The success of motel businesses especially in Davao City could not remain incognito now.

As Filipinos are naturally conservative and have religious morals and personal beliefs that they try to upkeep, “shorttime” practices or motel check-ins of at least three hours to satisfy body heat by making love, may be a common practice but not as openly discussed.

It’s funny how people try to make it a secret but somehow wanted to keep the very brief experience posh and royal. In Davao City, motel customers are royalties kept private in the comforts of their airconditioned rooms in Kingsfield Express Inn, QueensLand Hotel, Prince Court Motel, and Princess Perrine Suites.

Maybe it’s human nature to want something so brief to seem so grand and majestic and so it was decided that all the members of the Royal Court be present in Davao City’s motel industry.

One of the front desk staff of one of the motels along C.M. Recto, Davao City, who requested his name to not be revealed, said they reach an average of 80 to 85 guests on normal days. But on Valentine’s Day, they expect this number to go up by about 90 guests per day to about a hundred.

Even when February 14 is expected to be a busy day for every motels in the city, he said their preparations are still the same with how they prepare for their daily operations – making sure the sheets are clean, the room and the bathrooms are properly swept and mopped, and that there are new water bottles on the table beside the bed.

Another female staff said she was assigned in another motel in Iligan City for Valentine’s Day and said the demand for a short-time room in Davao City is much higher. Most of the customers of motels, take the 3-hour short time, which in the motels in Davao City, costs around P150 to P250 only. They also offer 6-hour, 12-hour, and even overnight stays. Motel business is an industry that does not only bank on the intimacy of their clients but as well as the privacy and the trust that their identities remain confidential for the entire 3-hour span that they are inside the room or even long after they have left the motel.

This industry caters to a wide age range of customers – from college students (who are made sure to not be minors and that they do not wear their school uniforms) to even as old as married people.

No matter what people say about motels in a shush manner, no matter how many are embarrassed about it, one thing remains: the short-time motel industry in Davao City is and will remain to be a growing industry in Davao City investing very much on love and intimacy.