Plantation Bay expects influx of summer guests

CEBU, Philippines – Amidst the gloomy background brought about by the world-wide economic crunch to the travel industry this year, one of Cebu’s popular inland resort destination, Plantation Bay Resort and Spa, continues to look at the influx of both foreign and local tourists this summer.

In an interview with Plantation Bay Resort and Spa’s PR associate Joanna Cuenco, she said that despite the slowdown of the global tourism market, they continue to thrive and attract a handful of visitors this year.

“There is a difference when you compare the situation and our performance today from previous years. But nevertheless we continue to do well in our occupancy and our bookings are still high,” said Cuenco.

She said that for January and February they were able to achieve 80 percent occupancy rate despite the negative prospects of the travel industry this year due to the global recession.

Cuenco noted that compared to previous years, this year their Korean visitors have decreased; however, other nationalities have started to peak up especially Europeans.

She said that the crisis gave them an opportunity to renovate and improve their products.

As of the moment, the resort is renovating four of its guest buildings to provide more value added features to their guests.

The renovations have been started on the first quarter of last year and these renovated buildings are eyed to be ready by the end of this year

Plantation Bay Resort and Spa currently has 256 rooms and last year six rooms were added to its inventory.

She said that to counter the forecasted slowdown in the industry, they are active in looking for new businesses in other places.

In fact this coming March, the resort will be joining an international travel fair in Berlin, Germany to attract more foreign guests.

“With the crisis, there is a slight difference but not to a point that we are already struggling and have to lay off workers. Although other hotels and resorts are affected with the current crisis, things are still on a normal range for us. Even if there is a recession world-wide we believe that the market will still want to enjoy life that is why we go out on our way to invite more people to experience the resort,” said Cuenco.

Plantation Bay recently launched its Summer Frolix, an annual promotion that targets domestic tourists as well as Filipino balikbayans.

Summer Frolix allows guests to avail a 20 percent discount for a minimum of three days and two nights stay at the resort.

At the moment, they have started to receive quite a number of bookings that has availed of their Summer Frolix promo.

Cuenco said that so far, their bookings for summer is doing fairly well and they expect more guests especially local tourists to flock.

“Summer is one of our peak seasons and every summer, we bank on the domestic tourists because usually we get a good number of Filipino tourists. Since we are not really badly affected with the crisis, we expect the same number of guests this summer,” said Cuenco. — Rhia de Pablo