Six-star luxury resort soon to open in Daan Bantayan

A six-star luxury resort will soon be opened in the northern part of Cebu, as MSY Holdings Corporation has started to develop the 12-hectare beach property in barangay Agujo, Daan Bantayan.

This will be the first six-star boutique resort to be built in Cebu that will offer a very exclusive 18-room luxury accommodation.

MSY Holdings Corporation chief operating officer Martin Phillip S. Yeung said that this luxurious exclusive resort named “Kandaya Hotel” will target a very specific niche market.

Yeung, 27, the son of Asia’s Diamond King and Philanthropist Carlos and Mariquita Yeung, is going to do hands-on work on this project, which already started development last year.

MSY Holdings is allocating an initial investment of P500 million, to build two-story resort structure, including the establishment of a very upscale Spa facility.

In an interview with Yeung, he said that he is talking with several international resort chains, to manage the six-star facility that is initially set to open by middle of next year.

However, he said since this project is very upscale, careful attention to details, not just the interior design and landscaping, but the entire packaging of the resort will be the ultimate priority.

“I want everything to go correctly, I’m not going to rush it,” he said that the mid of 2008 completion schedule might be compromised depending on the development of the project.

Yeung, who got his Business Administration diploma at the Pepperdine University in Malibu, California, is going to share his expertise in business management in his mother’s hometown in Cebu, taking advantage of the robust tourism sector here.

He is also helping the different businesses of his family, such as the real estate development projects introduced by MSY’s subsidiary MCF Property Ventures Corporation, and its international diamond trading firms—Fairway Diamond Co. Ltd., and Simplexdiam Co. Ltd., based in Hong Kong.

Kandaya Hotel will offer a modern Zen ambiance. Yeung said this project is just one of the series of resort developments being lined up by the company in the next few years.

The company is also trying to lobby for air-strip accessibility in Daan Bantayan, including Malapascua Island, in order to support its huge investment plan to develop sophisticated and exclusive boutique resorts in attractive northern shoreline and islets in the province.

Earlier, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo urged both local and international investors to set up good accommodation facilities in the provincial towns of Cebu, from north to south, in order to maximize Cebu’s potential to attract good number of quality foreign and local tourists.  — Edha Dago-oc