The Philippine Hotel Owners Association (PHOA) will organise the Philippine Hotel Connect forum on July 24 to 25 at the Marriott Grand Ballroom, providing a platform to promote tourism and hotel investments in the country.
It is a rebranding of the first Philippine Tourism Hotel and Investment Summit held in June last year, but what differentiates Philippine Hotel Connect, said PHOA executive director Benito Bengzon Jr, is that “it’s bigger for sure, with more exhibitors and more conference delegates”. He added the programme has been extended to two days, compared to just one day last year.
“The main idea is to provide a venue to promote tourism and hotel investments and to support the government’s initiatives, particularly the Department of Tourism (DoT), to expand capacity in the accommodation sector,” he said on the sidelines of the Hotelogix Tech and Tonic: A Hospitality Meetup last week.
The event will also provide an opportunity for PHOA member hotels to explore investment opportunities in various forms across different parts of the country. Bengzon said Philippine Hotel Connect is a way of showing support for the DoT, whose mandate is to promote investments in tourism using TIEZA (Tourism Infrastructure and Enterprise Zone Authority) as the investment promotion agency for tourism.
“So, moving forward, all tourism-related investments should be registered with TIEZA,” he said, adding that some PHOA member hotels have registered with TIEZA and availed themselves of fiscal incentives.
PHOA’s Philippine hotel pipeline report from last year listed its members’ 150 hotel projects over the next five years, which will add another 40,000 to 45,000 guest rooms, so “in a way, it is a very good development, a very good sign of investors’ confidence in the potential of the markets”, Bengzon pointed out.
