YES, it’s going to open—in due time—says Grant Gaskin, the genial general manager of what’s going to be a five-star business-conference hotel that is the Radisson in the building beside SM City Cebu.

Gaskin came to Cebu in February to oversee the transformation of the building into a first-rate hotel, beautiful but simple, contemporary, but not funky, with a very spacious lobby that he hopes will become a meeting place of people in the community.

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A New Zealander, Gaskin has been in the hotel industry for the past three decades, with stints in Melbourne, Fiji, Singapore, Malaysia, Bangladesh. Thailand, and China.

Though Radisson Hotel Cebu will be the first shell of a building he will transform into a hotel, he has had a vast experience in various facets of hotel operations. As director of special projects for Pan Pacific Hotels and Resorts, he spearheaded the $20 million refurbishment program of Pan Pacific Sonargaon in Dhaka, Bangladesh, restructuring as well the property’s sales and marketing operations, resulting in a 400 percent rise in its business. No wonder Radisson Hotels and Resorts has entrusted the making of its hotel in Cebu to him.

Gaskin, married to fellow New Zealander Jenny with whom he has a son, is happy to be in the Philippines which he thinks has “been done an injustice. It is not really unsafe. The scenery and the waters are far better than most Asian countries.”

Elsewhere, one has to drive two or more hours to get to the beach and go on a scuba dive, which he loves. And yes, one definite asset the country has is that the people here speak English. He was pleasantly surprised to be able to have a real conversation with his taxi driver, when he arrived in Manila.

Radisson Cebu is far from finished. But the hotel is already accepting bookings for July 2010, when Gaskin is sure the hotel will be finished and in tiptop shape. It will have a conference hall that can seat a thousand, and other smaller conference rooms that will accommodate another thousand, a grand ballroom with a thousand capacity and a smaller one with a capacity of serving 600 people.

He is very excited about the conference rooms, one wall of which will be a white board and a space for technical needs (video systems, microphones). It will also be in place in each of the conference rooms. These rooms will have at its center a meeting plaza where food and coffee will be served throughout the day while the big conference room will have its own spacious entrance lobby.

The main lobby of the hotel overlooks the swimming pool area and under the lobby will be the hotel spa.

From the outside, it seems as if there’s nothing going on at the long dormant building premises but inside, the workers are in place. If the work is taking long, it is because everything is done to ensure that the hotel will have the look, and the ambiance of a truly modern five-star hotel (even hotel staff uniforms will have a contemporary look).

Expect it, says Gaskin with a twinkle—a promise?—in his eye, to be finished by the first quarter of 2010.