ROBINSONS LAND Corp.’s P500-million hotel facility in Tacloban City, Leyte has secured approval from the Board of Investments (BoI) for qualifying as a tourism project under the 2017 Investment Priorities Plan.
In a statement on Tuesday, BoI said Summit Hotel and Resort Group’s project is expected to further boost tourism in the area that was hit by Typhoon Yolanda in November 2013.
Ceferino S. Rodolfo, Trade undersecretary for industry development and BoI managing head, said the agency “welcomed the addition of yet another impactful investment project” in the formerly typhoon-stricken area.
He said the project “will serve as a significant boost to the recovery efforts in the region, beefing up local tourism, further pushing economic growth, and providing more livelihood and employment opportunities to the people within the area.”
The agency said the project had been endorsed by the Department of Tourism as a five-star hotel facility within the Robinsons Place Complex in Tacloban City.
The 138-room hotel will have an outdoor pool, grand ballroom, meeting rooms and restaurants.
RLC’s fifth Summit Hotel in the country and its 12th-BoI registered hotel project is scheduled to start operating in April 2018 with 25 employees manning the business, BoI added.
BoI, the Department of Trade and Industry’s investment promotion arm, it had approved a total of 81 projects valued at P128.5 billion in areas affect by Typhoon Yolanda. The projects — from November 2013 up to June 2017 — is expected to generate 10,682 new jobs at full capacity.
“Over half of these registered investment projects are energy and power projects, of which 27 are into renewable energy. The rest are shared by sectors of manufacturing, real estate, agriculture, forestry and fishing, and accommodation and food service,” BoI said.
“This year alone witnessed a construction boom with 12 real-estate projects and nine renewable projects which are set to facilitate the social and economic development in the areas devastated by the super typhoon,” it added.
Robinsons Land is a unit of Gokongwei-led diversified conglomerate JG Summit Holdings, Inc., which has interests in real estate and hotels, food and beverages, air transportation, banking, petrochemicals and core investments in telecommunications and power distribution. — Victor V. Saulon
