|
Tuesday, April 19, 2005
British resort developer offers to help market Cebu to investors
A BRITISH resort developer has invited resort owners in Cebu and in peripheral areas to join him in marketing Cebu as a tourist destination, while generating resources to improve their facilities at the same time.
The resources will come from vacation leases that his United
Kingdom-based company will market initially in Europe, the United States and Japan.
“Join us, and we will market your resorts,” said William Sydney Charlton, chief executive officer of Sea Butterfly Tourism Management Corp., which has just established its Philippine operations office in Cebu City.
In a statement, Charlton said he will also start to build this month a P60-million, 30-apartment resort in Santa Fe, Bantayan Island that will serve as a showcase to Philippine resorts of the Sea Butterfly marketing strategy.
He recently visited Cebu City Mayor Tomas R. Osmeña who, with his sister Minnie Stuart, encouraged him to pursue his initiative, noting that it gives substance to the development of tourism in Cebu.
This developed as the company is finalizing an arrangement that will tap overseas Filipino workers to become sales agents for the same initiative.
Sea Butterfly will facilitate the booking of the resorts’ rooms or apartment units to tourists abroad through vacation leases that will be good for 10 years at 10 weeks in a year.
A lease for one resort unit is pegged at an equivalent of P1 million, he said, adding that Sea Butterfly will sell the same unit for a maximum of three leases, or a potential of P3 million in what will actually be advance room sales.
Charlton said that once a tourist forges a vacation lease with a particular resort, the tourist will pay the amount in full, to be transferred to the resort through an international escrow account.
The resort can use the amount it collects to improve its facilities based on standards that Sea Butterfly will require, he added.
Charlton said a resort with 25 units has a potential to raise P75 million in vacation leases.
He added that the resort will also earn from annual maintenance fees at P50,000 per room per year and the actual spending when these tourists come every year.
“We are selling Cebu, yet Cebuanos keep their patrimony over their
resort properties,” he pointed out.
Charlton said Sea Butterfly will not just sell vacation leases for the resorts but will continue serving them and the tourists, as it will later facilitate exchanges of vacation schedules and destinations. (PR)
(April 19, 2005 issue)
Write letter to the editor.Click here.
Join the Sun.Star message board.Click here. |
|
[return to top]
[home]
[network page]
|
LOCAL NEWS
BUSINESS
OPINION
SPORTS
LIFESTYLE
FEATURE
SUPERBALITA
WEEKEND
|
