Swiss chain plans 400-room hotel in RP

MANILA, Philippines – Swiss hotel chain Mövenpick plans to build a 400-room hotel in the Philippines, according to an embassy report.

In a report to the Department of Foreign Affairs, Philippine Ambassador to Switzerland Maria Theresa Lazaro said the hotel project was discussed during her meeting with Jean Gabriel Peres, president and chief executive officer of Mövenpick, at the company’s headquarters in Zurich.

With a Bahraini conglomerate as a major investor, Mövenpick targets to construct the Philippine hotel between 2012 and 2013. It will be located in Makati City.

Mövenpick Hotels & Resorts is an upscale hotel management company with 12,000 employees. It is represented through over 90 hotels operating or under construction in 26 countries concentrated in its core markets of Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Asia. 

The international hotel group, with roots in Switzerland, is currently expanding and aims to increase its hotel portfolio to 100 by the year 2010. 

Aside from the hotel, Peres also expressed interest in identifying resort hotels in other parts of the Philippines to widen the company’s hotel network.

Mövenpick has also shown keen interest in the business process outsourcing (BPO) industry of the Philippines.

The hotel group is owned by Mövenpick Holding (66.7 percent) and the Kingdom Group (33.3 percent). It has three hotels in Asia located in Phuket, Thailand and Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi, Vietnam.