Cebu City hotels fully booked for Sinulog Festival on Jan. 18

Business Mirror
Tuesday, 06 January 2009 21:25

IF there is an economic crisis in many parts of the world, it is not yet felt by Cebu City hotels, with many rooms already fully booked months before the Sinulog celebration two weeks from now.

Marco Protacio, president of the Hotels, Resorts and Restaurants Association of Cebu, said many city hotels are now full for days leading to the Sinulog Festival on January 18.

“If there is a crisis, it is not yet felt,” Protacio told the BusinessMirror. “It is very early to tell if the crisis really has an effect on the industry, because Cebu is blessed with a very long peak season.”

Most of the city hotels’ guests for the Sinulog are Filipino expatriates from different countries who come home for the festival and its religious traditions.

Protacio said the volume of bookings is still the same compared with the previous years, helped mainly by the availability of online bookings.

Cebu’s hotel industry peak season spans the Christmas months to the Sinulog in January and even up to February for the Chinese New Year.

Protacio, who is general manager of Waterfront Cebu City Hotel and Casino, said his more than 300 rooms have been fully booked for the Sinulog days since late November.

“As far as the city hotels are concerned, many are already fully booked,” he said.

“This highlights the fact that during our peak months, Cebu City needs more rooms. But many guests are already opting to stay in the resorts in Mactan, which is also very good.”

There are some 7,000 hotel rooms dotting Cebu City.

Jenny Franco, chairman of the National Association of Independent Travel Agencies in Cebu, said group bookings for the Sinulog are still coming in, mostly composed of Filipinos based abroad.

Protacio also belied reports that hotels are overcharging clients with exorbitant room rates, saying the difference in prices is normal across industries.

“I find this accusation unfair because airlines jack up their prices on a daily basis,” he said.

He said hotel-room prices and their increases during peak months are carefully studied and adjusted to reasonably reflect the general economic situation.

“It is still supply and demand and as you can see, many of the hotels are fully booked,” he said.