The Board of Investments said Friday it approved the registration of SureStay Plus Hotel’s P45-million COVID-19-resistant project.
It said the project was the second premium economy hotel of Cebu Quad Management Corp. in partnership with SureStay Plus Hotel by Best Western. The first hotel was in Angeles City, Pampanga.
SureStay Plus Hotel said it would adopt information technology systems for contact tracing, online booking and contactless payment. The hotel will also install cameras equipped with thermal sensors or no-contact thermal scanner, and disinfect kiosks with sensors as part of measures to reduce COVID-19 infections.
SureStay Plus is expected to generate 32 direct and indirect jobs in its first five years of operation. The project will help address the occupancy gap by contributing 63 new rooms, and is expected to provide additional income to food and beverage suppliers and furniture designers and makers of high-quality handicraft in Cebu.
The project also supports the government’s “Buy Local” campaign which aims to promote patronage of products and services of domestic enterprises to help them recover from losses during the lockdown.
Tourism has been among the hardest-hit sectors amid the global pandemic. As part of government’s efforts to help the sector, the BOI launched a campaign to support businesses during the pandemic.
The campaign aims to provide Philippine businesses with the information and the help they need in view of the health crisis. The campaign promotes government help in a range of areas, from movement of goods to schemes for manufacturers.
The BOI collaborated closely with the Department of Tourism to introduce a policy providing investment incentives for tourism and tourism-related industries that are upgrading and modernizing their facilities in order to operate under the new normal.
“The tourism sector has been one of the worst affected of all the major sectors of the economy due to the current health crisis. By providing investment incentives, we hope that the sector, which was a major driver of the economy’s growth pre-COVID-19, will stay afloat, continue business operations, and recover the soonest while ensuring the health, safety and wellness of tourists,” said Tourism secretary Bernadette Puyat.
“Tourist accommodation facilities who would like to undertake improvements to make their facilities COVID-proof may consider applying for registration of such with the BOI as modernization projects,” she said.
“Even tourism facilities in Boracay, which currently do not qualify for incentives for new and expansion projects because of locational restrictions, may qualify for this special type of incentives for COVID modernization/upgrade projects. These incentives are meant to help the tourism industry recover faster and provide comfort/safety in our tourism facilities, Puyat said.
As a labor-intensive sector, the accommodation segment employs about 1.91 million Filipinos or 33.6 percent of the total employment in 2019.
Accommodation is an important tourism value chain of the country being a leading dollar earner along with the overseas Filipino workers and business process outsourcing firms.
The average length of stay of foreign visitors is usually up to 9.49 nights with an average daily expenditure of $128.35.
The sector contributed P518.72 billion or 20.9 percent of the total tourism direct gross value added of P2.48 trillion in 2019.