Filipino luxury resort brand

MANILA, Philippines - Anya is a Sanskrit word that means “no boundaries.”

Anya Resort & Residences, the first Filipino luxury resort, is exactly that. It knows no boundaries in terms of what it can accomplish, especially in terms of creating a truly Filipino resort brand.

Located in Tagaytay, Anya aims to redefine resort living. Phase One, which is already sold out, consists of 54 open resort lots while Phase Two will have 80 resort units majority of which are suites. Construction of this phase has started. Phase Three, which will be launched in July, will have 117 branded residences.

Unlike Phase Two which consists of studios with a size of about 50 square meters and one-bedroom units of around 70 sq.m. which will be housed in two-storey cluster buildings of four units each (though one cluster will have eight units), Phase Three will have bigger units of one to three bedrooms located in three or four-storey  buildings.  All three phases will cost P1 billion and cover a total area of seven hectares.

For the resort units, the owners are required to enrol their units in the resort pool through a leaseback arrangement.

According to Santi Elizalde, senior vice president of Roxaco Land Corp., developer of Anya, what is unique about this leaseback arrangement is that unit owners will be guaranteed a six percent cash yield on the purchased asset price as early as the first year of operations.This is based on a 51 percent occupancy rate and a room rate of P6,500 per day.  Current projections point to a consistent eight percent return per year for the first five years.

But what is even more exciting for Anya residents and guests will be the project’s anchor, the resort. Aside from a Devarana Spa of the Thai Dusit Group that will be located inside the facility, they will have access to three restaurants to be operated by a celebrity chef in Singapore who owns a number of restaurants  in Singapore and Malaysia. There will also be three heated pools, as well as a residents’ pavilion.

The Asian tropical-themed boutique development will open its resort by December of 2015. The resort will be operated by Fuego Hotels and Properties Management Corp.,  the same company that runs Club Punta Fuego in Nasugbu, Batangas. Roxaco owns 85 percent of Fuego Hotels.

But Anya in Tagaytay is just the beginning.

Elizalde, who is also the president of hotel and resort operator Fuego Hotels, said Anya is a brand that they want to develop moving forward, especially in the absence of a truly Filipino resort brand.

In the next three to five years, Anya will launch two to three new projects, all resort-type developments.

The group is looking at Puerto Princesa, Coron, and El Nido all in Palawan, Bohol, and Boracay as possible future locations.

“Anya is a brand we feel has the potential to expand in and out of the country. We are positioning it like Banyan Tree and Six Senses. We are also looking at other locations. We’re looking at a project in Palawan in the El Nido and Coron, Busuanga areas, in Batangas, in Davao...we are evaluating four to five locations to open within the next five years,” Elizalde said.

Anya will also have in the future an Elite Program that will allow both lot and branded residence owners access to other resorts of the group.