By Maya M. Padillo, Correspondent
TACLOBAN CITY — Robinsons Land Corp. (RLC) is targeting the meetings, incentives, conferences, and exhibitions (MICE) market for its Summit Hotel Tacloban, which was formally opened on Thursday.
“We acknowledge that Eastern Visayas is a very strong MICE market as there are a lot of corporate and government activities and there’s very few MICE facilities in Tacloban and Eastern Visayas,” RLC General Manager of Hotels and Resorts Elizabeth Kristine D. Gregorio said in an interview at the event.
Ms. Gregorio said the company is optimistic about cornering a slice of the MICE market in Tacloban, which serves as the regional center of Eastern Visayas. Summit is currently the largest hotel in the city.
“We hope to get a sizeable portion of the MICE market in Tacloban and Eastern Visayas given that we have a very superior product, we have a lot to offer,” she said.
The 138-room hotel, which had a soft opening earlier this year, has a ballroom that can accommodate up to 600 people, and smaller function rooms for meetings.
Maria Trinidad C. Dacuycuy, officer-in-charge of the Department of Tourism-Eastern Visayas office, told media during the event that the department is positioning Tacloban as a MICE destination, especially now with more flights available and a resurgent hotel sector
“About 14 flights (a day), and also more and more hotels are being constructed after typhoon Yolanda (international name: Haiyan), and boutique hotels started mushrooming also because of the demand. So we really need more hotels,” Ms. Dacuycuy said.
Ms. Dacuycuy said in the past, MICE hosting bids would fail due to lack of available accommodations and meeting venues.
“We don’t have a (big) venue and the opening of the Summit Hotel is a welcome development in terms of tourism. So now we can bid confidently for more bigger MICE,” she said.
Ms. Gregorio said RLC is ramping up its hotel projects outside the capital due to growing regional markets.
She said, “There’s a lot of activities outside Metro Manila and each region we’re growing more of our Summit Hotel alongside expanding our Go Hotels. But defntiely Summit Hotel will be a MICE facility. This is the first in Eastern Visayas and the first time that we have both a Summit and a Go Hotel in the same city.”
