Cebu hoteliers hope holidays will make up for lean months

Cebu hoteliers are keeping their fingers crossed that the coming holiday season will offset the lean months they have been experiencing brought about by the global economic crisis.

Hotels, Resorts, and Restaurant Association of Cebu (HRRAC) president Marco Protacio said most hotels and resorts in Cebu have been affected by the economic crunch with an industry decline noted at around 10 percent to 15 percent drop in gross revenues.

“It is not that big but we are hoping that people will travel more. And with the holiday season and Sinulog festival coming, we hope it will make up for the shortage,” he said.

Protacio said since the upper market segments have been most hard hit by the global crisis, the international traveling market segment who usually spends on luxurious vacation packages likewise suffered a steep decline.

“The effect of the global economy on us is not more on occupancy because so far it is still stable but we are slowly losing the international market, the paying travellers. We instead get tour groups and commercial tourists who just pay the preferential rates,” he said.

Protacio, who is also the general manager of the Waterfront Hotel and Casino in Lahug, said that although they feel the effects of the economic crunch, it’s not really that bad as it seems.

“We feel the effect but it is not that bad. But we just became conservative of our projections this year,” he said.

Protacio said that September and October has been rather quite for the industry even if September used to be a stronger month for them.

He said that in previous years there were several conventions held in their hotel during the months of September but this year it seemed to have dwindled.

However Protacio is still hopeful saying that, “we still believe that this is just temporary and people will still travel. But for how long this will continue, we don’t know.”

Protacio said that the industry is also hoping that the upcoming United Nations-World Tourism Organization’s (UN-WTO) 6th International Tourism Forum for Parliamentarians that will be hosted by Cebu this October 22 to 25 would make up for the business that they have lost for the previous three months.

“We have faith that it will get better sooner and we can find market somewhere that will cover for the slowdown,” he said.

Right now, new markets that hotels and resort are looking after include Russians and Indians.

Protacio said that before their industry used to focus more on the Japanese, Korean and other Asian tourists because of its proximity but they have seen the need to look out for newer markets.

“We are still depending on Asian tourists but we have to develop new markets and Russians and Indians are big markets,” he said.

Protacio said that Russians usually stay for a longer period in hotels at around a week or more and they spend over the food they eat and other amenities while Indians on the other hand is eyed for its big population and its capacity to also spend.—Rhia de Pablo