Philippines’ Megaworld plans resort hotels, rural development

Urban developer Megaworld intends to spend 8.5 billion Philippine pesos ($177 million) to build hotels in vacation destinations and invest 180 billion pesos over the next decade in rural areas, taking advantage of President Rodrigo Duterte’s economic priorities. The real estate giant plans to construct three hotels under its new Savoy brand by 2018, information presented to the Philippine Stock Exchange shows. Two of them will be on the popular resort islands of Mactan and Boracay. These hotels will feature 500-700 rooms each and cost a total of 5 billion pesos. Megaworld’s plans include a hotel on Boracay Island (Image: Nikkei) Megaworld also will open two hotels under the Belmont brand in resort areas by 2019 at a cost of 3.5 billion pesos. The Philippine company’s plans fit with the government’s commitment to develop tourism into an economic growth engine. Megaworld, an anchor unit of conglomerate Alliance Global Group, has engaged in development...