Astoria Hotel to spend P3 billion on expansion

MANILA, Philippines — Local hotel group Astoria Hotel & Resorts (AHR) is spending about P3 billion for the expansion of its various properties across the country, a top-ranking official said.

On the sidelines of the Puerto Princesa City business forum yesterday, AHR chairman Jeffrey Ng said they have allocated P600 million for the expansion of its Astoria Palawan hotel.

This involves the construction of an additional 50 new rooms.

”Right now we have 150 rooms, we feel that with the tremendous growth of the city because of the Puerto Princesa International Airport, we expect more local and international tourist arrivals into Puerto Princesa so we feel that 150 rooms is not enough,” Ng said.

At present, the Palawan hotel caters to both international and local tourists, as well as guests from the meetings, incentives, conventions and exhibitions market (MICE).

“We have a lot of MICE market conventioneers, who come during weekdays for their seminars, meetings, training forums and then during weekends we get tourists from other countries and even local tourists.

“Overall, the whole week throughout the year we are happy with the occupancy that Astoria Palawan is achieving,” Ng said, adding that average occupancy is above the 80 percent level.

The company official said they are about to break ground for the expansion project which is targeted to be finished in nine months.

Apart from the additional rooms, Ng said the company would expand its other facilities such as the swimming pool and other resort facilities.

Meanwhile, Ng said the company is also eyeing to put up hotels in Coron and El Nido, particularly in the Ayala Group’s Lio tourism estate, both in Palawan.

Ng emphasized the growing interest of tourists from Palawan, which has further increased since the closure of Boracay last year.

“But since Boracay was closed last year for six months, more tourists have gone to Puerto Princesa and they realized that the ambiance, the beach, and even our water park, they can enjoy as much just as they are enjoying themselves in Boracay,” Ng said.

“So to our pleasant surprise, there is much more interest for people to stay in Palawan especially in our case, Puerto Princesa. Us being the only hotel resort in Palawan with a water partk of our own,” Ng said.

While the Coron and El Nido projects are still in the planning stages, Ng said they hope to start with the project in the next two to three years.

Apart from Palawan, AHR is also expanding its Bohol hotel, and eyeing to put up a hotel in Siargao.

“We are still studying, we have acquired a property already in siargao and right now we are still doing the design phase, how many rooms, what kind of rooms, amenities,” Ng said.