Microtel operator calls for fast, efficient closure and rehab of Boracay

While the six-month closure of Boracay will not have a major impact on the business of Microtel Inn & Suites, its operator on Tuesday called for a fast and efficient rehabilitation of the island resort.

“Since it’s going to happen anyway, I hope the period will be put to good use. We’ve been asking for what is the plan,” Phinma Corp. president and CEO Ramon del Rosario Jr. said on the sidelines of the ASEAN Forum on Enterprise for Society.

Phinma currently holds and operates the master franchise of Microtel in the Philippines. It operates a Microtel hotel at Diniwid Beach in Boracay.

The government plans to close Boracay for six months starting April 26, to make way for an environmental cleanup.

“I understand it is evolving, but I hope that once the closure starts, they will mobilize quickly and do what needs to be done with full determination and full efficiency so that at the end of the six months, there will be a perceptible difference,” Del Rosario noted.

“The hope is that it will be put to good use and we will see an improved Boracay after the six months,” he said.

In operating terms, the closure would not have that much of an impact on the company.

“Not so much, because it’s not a very large hotel. It’s only 60 rooms. It was doing very well, but sayang lang ’yung momentum of the island,” Del Rosario said. —VDS, GMA News