Property firms plan to add over 4000 hotel rooms in Metro Manila this year, topping their last peak of 2100 rooms in 2014, according to property consultancy Colliers International Philippines. By increasing the number of hotel rooms, developers are supplying the recent growth in demand from foreign visitors to the city.
Philippine Amusement and Gaming’s Okada Manila, the largest and most expensive development in the Entertainment City, will open a third of those anticipated guestrooms.
However, Chris Wells, consultant for hotels and leisure services at Colliers, said in a statement that occupancy rates will remain between 65 and 70 percent over the next 12 months—the same rates seen for the past three years.
“Outlook for Philippine tourism remains bullish, and this encourages hotel developers to ramp up construction of accommodation facilities throughout the country,” Wells said.
The new projects include DoubleDragon Properties’ plans for five new Jinjiang hotels this year and a 250-room Seda hotel in Circuit Makati.
Colliers predicts at least 6.6 million foreign tourists will visit the Philippines in 2017, a tenth higher from the 5.97 million recorded in 2016. However, that’s lower than the government’s 7-million tourist projection.
With the recent Chinese-Filipino tourism cooperation agreement under way, the country intends to benefit from the increased hotel capacities. Within this agreement, the two countries also explore possibly increasing capacity entitlements in air services and encourage airlines to open new flights from China to the Visayas and Mindanao.
The Philippines also foresees benefits from the spillover impact of the hosting of major international events, such as the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit and the Miss Universe competition.