The way to Go
Traveling is like playing poker: you never know what hand you’re going to be dealt. Well, in most cases. Sometimes you find yourself in most unfamiliar territory: Struer in Denmark or Rotterdam in the Netherlands or — from the viewpoint of that Bizarro me who lives in Europe (hey, we all have one) — the metropolis of Manila. Say your flight gets delayed, so you either look at this development as either one crappy turn of the cards or an opportunity from the gods of travel to familiarize yourself with an unfamiliar environment. You need a place to stay for a night or two and you don’t want to blow everything on a suite fit only for Marie Antoinette or Mariah Carey. Budget hotels are the solution, and believe me, there are all kinds.
Most travelers have slept in glorified closets with a sink and a promise of burnt-out toast in the morrow. I almost checked into one that would make the digs in Hostel look like those of the Waldorf Astoria — complete with menacing skinheads and buxom beauties at the lobby. I almost became roommates with “Sven.” But there do exist budget hotels that are Spartan yet sufficient: a comfy bed here, a private bathroom there, a television set, and a window display of a European city so spectacular you swear you’ve seen the spectacle before in a Taschen picture book.
In the Philippines, Robinsons Land Corporation (RLC) — which operates the Crowne Plaza, Holiday Inn Galleria, Cebu Midtown Hotel and Summit Ridge in Tagaytay — has put up the good variant of the budget hotel. Only the company representatives are not calling it thusly. They call it “the country’s first value hotel.”
“That is because of our value-for-money proposition,” explains Go Hotels head Elizabeth Gregorio about the chain of hotels called Go Hotels. The first Go Hotel is at the upper ground floor of Robinsons Cybergate Plaza along EDSA corner Pioneer Street. The hotel is beside Robinsons Forum mall, and a 10-minute walk from the Boni Avenue station of the MRT.
So what does this value hotel offer that its lowly budget brethren do not? We recently got the chance to spend a night in one of the rooms of Go Hotel and found out for ourselves.
The hotel interiors boast clean lines, lots of lulling white walls, swabs of green and yellow, and chunks upon chunks of space — very minimalist, just the way modernists like it. The rooms range from 16 to 22 square meters with a choice of twin beds or one queen-size bed. If you’re not a Viking or Hannibal’s elephant, this is a very sufficient room size for some shuteye. The beds are comfy, pillows are chiropractic and hypoallergenic, so they feel like those of a luxury hotel. The bathrooms are sleek and come with rain shower. Each room has an LCD TV so — even when you’re traveling — you won’t miss watching Steve Nash do his kamikaze drives against the skyscraping Lakers defense (commiserations go to those saddened to see “The King” go… I’m not).
Go Hotel provides Wi-Fi Internet access for free, so guests can check flight availability, get weather updates, update their Facebook status, e-mail people they’re supposed to meet in their next city of destination, or (naughty-naughty) check out what that mega-chick Megan Fox is up to. The hotel guarantees safety with in-room safes and CCTV system at the lobby and corridors. A mall is nearby, so guests have a plethora of restaurants to choose from; there are convenient stores within the complex as well. But the most valuable thing is, the room (depending on availability, occupancy) can go for as low as P388+ a night.
“It works similarly with the budget airline model — the earlier you book, the lower the rate you get,” says Gregorio. Guests can visit the gohotels.ph website which shows room rates and allows them to make reservations and instant confirmation; and if they’re judicious travelers who tend to book way ahead of schedule, they’ll get low, low rates.
Robinsons Land plans on putting up three more Go Hotels in Tacloban, Dumaguete and Palawan to follow the 223-room Go Hotel in Mandaluyong — such a boon for foreign tourists (who want to soak in more of the Philippines without blowing their budget on pricey digs), as well as for dynamic, archipelago-trotting Pinoys in general.
“There is a specific market for this,” explains RLC corporate PR manager Roseann Coscolluela-Villegas. “People these days are highly mobile — they travel by air, by land — so they need a place where they can rest. And they need a room that is comfortable and affordable.”
Gregorio agrees. “We want to set the standards for value hotels in the country. So we took a lot of time studying what should go into each room, and we didn’t scrimp on equipment (or the amenities). It’s all about quality.”
And consistency. And value. And, mind you, traveling need not be as erratic as a card game.
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For inquiries and reservations, visit http://www.gohotels.ph, or call 0922-GOHOTEL (0922-4646835) or (02) 398-8788.
