Jan. 14, 2013--An Ayala Land Inc. (ALI) unit, AyalaLand Hotels and Resorts Corporation (AHRC), is looking to develop an additional 3,000 to 4,000 hotel rooms in two to three years, a top official of the company said.

Junie Jalandoni, president of AHRC, told reporters that the company is targeting 3,000 to 4,000 hotels in two to three years because it has to ride on with the boom of the tourism industry in the country.

"We are very bullish because of the economy and the government is very helpful right now, they are promoting tourism," he said.

Jalandoni said, however, that as they expand, "the biggest challenge really is access and the infrastructure" because some of the provinces in the country have not yet been fully developed.

"But it's good that the government is very supportive with infrastructure," he added.

The AHRC official said that the hotels that will be added in their portfolio in 2013 are not yet enough to achieve the target of 3,000 to 4,000 rooms.

"Hindi pa enough [It's still not enough], we still have a long way to go," Jalandoni said.

This year, AHRC will open Raffles Fairmont Hotel, Holiday Inn, and some outside Metro Manila.

"Technically, the Raffles Fairmont grand opening is this year, Holiday Inn is another 350 [hotel rooms], and Davao will have another 170 plus," Jalandoni said.

He added that they are trying to look at this expansion at a multi-level approach.

"Some of them [upcoming projects] we're still planning, some of them are not yet announced," he said.

On Friday, Jalandoni announced that they are going to build a Seda brand hotel in Circuit Makati, a recently launched P20-billion ALI project in Makati.

He said that the Seda brand hotel in Circuit Makati, which has a project cost of P1.5 billion to P2 billion, will be up and running in 2016.

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