Radisson Hotel to use locally-made furnishings

CEBU, Philippines - Radisson Hotel Cebu, the hotel project of SM, is keen on procuring locally-made furnishing materials for its interiors to help Cebu’s creative industry cope with the global market slowdown.

In an interview with the vice president of SM Prime Holdings, Inc. Marissa Fernan, she said that this week, they will be interviewing Cebuano suppliers who can qualify for the procurement of the hotel rooms’ furnishings.

“We want to get as many Cebuano suppliers as possible for furniture, lamps, furnishings so that we can help the furniture industry. We want to get local contractors because here in Cebu, there are a lot of local companies who are doing world-class products and we want to tap them,” said Fernan.

The 20-story Radisson Hotel Cebu which covers 59,750 square meters of floor area will have 400 rooms and it targets to soft open in October and grand open in December.

Fernan said that amidst the height of the global financial crisis, their hotel refurbishing for Radisson is still within the budget cost of P2.5 billion.

“We have even noted prices of construction materials going down and by getting Cebuano suppliers we might even save more on our costs,” said Fernan.

She said that at the moment, the hotel’s refurbishing is more than half complete and it is mandated to soft open by October.

She said that the key staff of the hotel is already in place and they are still going to hire more people to complete the staff and priorities will be given to Cebuanos to provide employment to the community.—Rhia de Pablo