Family of culinary experts venture into hotel business

A 34-room boutique hotel recently opened at the prime business site in Cebu, near the Cebu Business Park, which will provide a wide choice of accommodation facilities in the metropolis.

Operated by the Franco family, the owner of Philippine School of Culinary Arts, the Regal Business Park Hotel at Archbishop Reyes Avenue fronting Ayala Center Cebu, will be the first "legitimate" boutique hotel in Cebu.

A boutique hotel is a small property, typically offering an enhanced, personalized level of service and marketed to the affluent boutique operation.

This kind of accommodation is more common in Europe, and Cebu has started to embrace this kind of service, amid the shortage of accommodation facilities and growing number of business and leisure visitors.

The Franco family leased the six-story property formerly City Park Inn, in a 20-year contract. The hotel's renovation started late last year, now the hotel is ready for occupancy.

Food and beverage (F&B) manager John Franco said the hotel will highlight is food and beverage niche, being the family's forte.

Regal Business Park will also open its fine dining restaurant soon that will offer international food preparation, with a touch of Filipino flavor.

This is the first time that the Franco family ventured into hotel business, John Franco said managing a hotel may not be difficult for the family as they have been into the similar industry (culinary) for a long time.

At present, the refurbishing and renovation of some rooms are still ongoing. However, the hotel is already open for bookings.

Regal Business Park Hotel joins the Cebu accommodation industry, but with emphasis as a "boutique" hotel which is geared towards a more personalized service.

Tourism prime mover Sammy Lim earlier said that with Cebu's potential as the tourism center in the Philippines, it should also provide accommodation alternative from five-star to pension house, or bed and breakfast type of room service.

Cebu only has an accommodation capacity of over 6,000 hotel room accommodation, majority of which offer high standard and more expensive rates, from business hotel accommodation type, other lower alternative are pension type accommodation.

Lim said Cebu needs boutique hotel accommodations to help fill up the room shortage problems, and give visitors a wide choice of accommodation offerings.