IT’S about time.
This was the vibe at Courtyard by Marriott Iloilo at the Iloilo Business Park in Mandurriao, Iloilo City when guests and personnel started filling its spacious main lobby during its grand launch last Wednesday, May 9.
Executives from the hotel management and owner Megaworld Corp. shared the same view: it’s about time for Iloilo City – which has been experiencing fast infrastructure and business growth over the past eight years – to have an international hotel.
Not only is Courtyard the first international hotel in Western Visayas – it is the first Courtyard, a Marriott International brand, in the Philippines.
Specifically the 326-room Courtyard Iloilo caters to what General Manager Cleofe Albiso calls the “trailblazers,” or simply, those who travel mostly for work or business.
Its amenities were designed for this type of guests. In the guestrooms, for example, aptly named nooks like the Luggage Drop (a bag storage area) and the Tech Drop (a ledge for gadgets and work-related stuff), and the Lounge Around sofa and the nearby desk are arranged for the occupant to move conveniently. It has – proudly – a 250-Mbps internet speed.
Courtyard is banking on the draw of its brand. “The presence of an international brand will entice international, foreign visitors,” says Albiso. “We have facilities that cater to those want to stay particularly in international (hotel) brands only.”
“Every single guest has to feel the difference when they enter the premises … in terms of the welcome, the level of service, the attention to details that we provide,” she says.
That the hotel is “almost full every single day” – noticeably, most guests are foreigners and Filipinos from other parts of the Philippines attending work-related conferences – since its “soft opening” on May 1 suggests that there is a market awaiting the kind of experience Courtyard Iloilo offers.
“That is a testimony of how excited the people are for us to open,” says Albiso.
The simplicity of the grand launch last Wednesday added to the class exuded by a hotel like Courtyard Iloilo.
After the ceremonial cutting of ribbon followed a luncheon at the Iloilo Ballroom where guests were served a five-course meal – dishes with local ingredients as base but prepared to strip them of their usual look while preserving the flavors all too familiar to the palate.
Kingson Sian, president and CEO of Travellers International Hotel Group, Inc., the company behind the development of hotels of Megaworld, says the coming of Courtyard in the local accommodation industry is “quite timely.”
“I think it’s about time (for an international hotel in Iloilo),” Sian, one of those who led the ribbon-cutting, tells Panay News. “Iloilo needs one.”
“Iloilo’s economy has been transforming rapidly. There are a lot of businesses coming in, investing in Iloilo, especially the BPO (business process outsourcing) industry,” Sian says.
“At the end of the day, there is no international (hotel) brand (in Iloilo),” he says, “[When] you see an opportunity like that, it’s a no-brainer.”
A pool party for the guests and hotel personnel (at Courtyard, they’re called “associates”) around the Pool Bar on the second floor followed Wednesday night, and a press tour in Guimaras Island and around Iloilo City the next two days./PN
