The completion of six hotel casino complexes in the Philippines’ Entertainment City in Parañaque City can stimulate the country’s tourism industry, a high-ranking official of the country’s leading real-estate services firm said recently.
“About half of the upcoming hotels will be built in Entertainment City,” said David Leechiu, international director and country head of Jones Lang LaSalle. According to Leechiu, the number of hotel rooms in Entertainment City will reach 10,850 once the complexes are complete. This includes Bloomberry Resorts’ nearly 500-room Solaire Resort and Casino that opened in March.
Hotels that are expected to open in the area next year are the 1,000-room Belle Grande Manila, the 2,050-room Manila Bay Resorts, the 2,300-room Okada Resort Manila and the 500-room Radisson Hotel Manila. After opening the Solaire Resort and Casino, the first phase of its Solaire resort project, Bloomberry is planning to construct two more 500-room luxury hotels in Entertainment City in the next few years.
It is believed that once gaming activities in the integrated resorts of Entertainment City become better known overseas, they will generate more interest in the Philippines. The country has set visitor and travel targets of 44 million domestic trips and the attraction of 10 million foreign tourists by 2016.
To address the needs of local and foreign tourists, it was estimated that the Philippines would need an additional 20,000 rooms on top of the 7,000 new rooms set to be built ahead of 2014.
