FDC president and chief executive officer Josephine Gotianun-Yap told reporters the company is in the planning stage of developing a new hotel brand.
“I think there’s a new brand. More on the millennial market,” Gotianun-Yap said in an interview following the firm’s annual stockholder’s meeting Friday.
At present, FDC has four hotel brands under its hotel development unit Chroma Hospitality Inc., a joint venture between FDC and Indonesian hotel operator Archipelago International.
These brands are Crimson Hotels and Resorts, Canvas Hotels, Quest Hotels and Azure Beach club. Crimson and Canvas are two homegrown brands.
Gotianun-Yap said the first location of the yet-to-be-named millennial hotel brand would be in Mactan, Cebu.
Average per night rates of the new brand will range from P3,000- P4,000, according to the company official.
Apart from the new hotel brand, Gotianun-Yap said the firm has several hotels in the pipeline, as it works toward its 2020 goal of managing 5,000 hotel rooms all over the country.
Among the locations of the upcoming hotels are Puerto Princesa in Palawan, Tagaytay in Cavite and Cubao in Quezon City.
“We’re also looking at another one in Clark, plus expansion as well of Clark (Quest Hotel),” Gotianun-Yap said.
However, the company official did not disclose a timeline for the development of the new hotels.
To date, Chroma manages 1,365 rooms, including the Quest Hotel and Golf Center, in Clark which opened in 2016.
In 2016, the hotel group reported a 26 percent rise in revenues to P1.6 billion.
“We expect to continue this excellence when we open the gated resort spa in Boracay this year, which will bring the total number of rooms to over 1,500,” Gotianun-Yap said.
Moreover, aside from the firm’s hotel segment, FDC also has plans of expanding its power generation business, through its subsidiary FDC Utilities Inc.
“We’re pretty invested na in the Mindanao market, so we’re really looking at the Luzon market. Probably more on the renewable energy,” Gotianun-Yap said.
Last year, the power generation unit completed its 3 x 135-megawatt coal power plant in Villanueva, Misami Oriental.
Furthermore, Gotianun-Yap said the FDC is earmarking P40 billion for capital expenditures, the bulk of which would go to its property business, which include its subsidiaries Filinvest Land, Inc.(FLI) Filinvest Alabang Inc.(FAI) and as well as Chroma Hospitality.
