Bernard Tanchan Story

THE corner spot where the hotel stands on has been with their family for decades. Cebuanos would easily recognize that area as where the long-running Tanchan Goodyear Servitek used to be, and on its second floor was the Tanchan family’s home. Today the tire shop and service center has been replaced with a towering 10-floor structure that boasts of an exquisite and modern design—the newly-opened Best Western Plus Lex Cebu.

Taking over the reins as its general manager is 27-year-old Bernard Neil Tanchan, a scion of Tanchan Business Ventures Inc. Dynamic and aggressive, Bernard is setting his eyes on putting Best Western, which is the newest player on the block, on a remarkable position in no time.

Bernard is a graduate of industrial engineering from the University of San Carlos. He used to help out in their family’s business in the ice storage trade, a venture which he describes as “totally far from hospitality.”

“This is totally something new for me,” he says. “Before I was just handling ice. It was more product-oriented. Now there’s the human side that I need to look into. Interaction is different and it’s more personal.”

Training the young hotelier in his new venture is Fay Paras, who is Best Western’s consultant. Bernard shares that the hotel, which is a four-star brand of the hotel chain Best Western International Inc., also follows the given international standards of the mother company.

Among the amenities of the hotel, Bernard says, are its international cuisine done by food and beverage consultant Steve Shrimski of Canvas, a 120-person capacity ballroom, function rooms, business and fitness centers, and an infinity pool on its top floor.

It took nearly four years for hotel construction to finish and the 83-room hotel finally had its soft opening in the second week of January, greeting the Sinulog weekend crowd.

“We saw a gap between high-end and low-end hotels in Cebu,” Bernard shares. He describes Best Western Plus Lex as a hotel with midrange rates that offer amenities normally found in luxury hotels. The family corporation, he says, chose the Best Western chain for its notable marketing arm and standards as well as for its reliable brand name worldwide.

Young as he is, Bernard is ready to make the Best Western name famous in the local hospitality scene. What keeps him going in his new endeavor, he says: “It’s getting good comments from guests that they are impressed with our rooms and service.”