Italpinas eyes tourism property market

Greenbuilder Italpinas Development Corp. plans to tap into the growing tourism market to answer rising demand for tourism-related developments, a company official said.

In a recent interview, Italpinas President Jose Leviste 3rd told The Manila Times that the firm is looking to enter the tourism market, possibly with property in Mindoro.

“We’re looking at a prospect in Mindoro for a tourism development,” Leviste said.

Leviste noted that no formal plans for the tourism development have been made yet. However, he noted of the firm’s optimistic outlook on the tourism market.

“It’s not anything that we’ve formalized yet, but it’s an example of how we are looking at that because we think that the economic effect is much bigger than the footprint of the development and as a job-creator, I think tourism is a big mover of jobs,” Leviste explained.

Similarly, Italpinas Chairman and Chief Operating Officer Romolo Nati also noted the company’s positive prospects on the country’s growing tourism market.

“There is an increasing demand for real estate for tourism, so we want to be there,” Nati told The Manila Times in a separate interview.

A growing focus on tourism-related development has been observed by a number of major property developers.

In an earlier interview, KMC Mag Group managing director Michael McCullough noted that the growing number of tourist arrivals is driving developers to put up more hotels.

“I think if you take a look at tourism receipts in general, they’re up a lot,” McCullough said in a phone interview.

McCullough described the country’s tourism scene as a “high-rank travel market” due to the growing number foreign arrivals, aside from the already strong domestic travel market.

Based on tourist arrivals data from the Department of Tourism (DOT), Tourists arrivals in May 2016 increased by 7.61 percent to 445,449 from the 413,937 posted last year.

This translates to P19.95 billion in total earnings gained from tourism activities in the same month, a 18.97 percent increase from the P16.77 billion posted in May of the previous year.

Nati said that besides Mindoro, Dumaguete and Davao are also potential areas for tourism-related development.

Despite the positive outlook on the tourism market, Nati emphasized that the company has not yet acquired properties for tourism developments.

“We’re still talking with other stakeholders,” Nati said.

The chairman noted that the firm is also in talks with hotel and resort-managing companies.

“We are talking already with a few companies that are interested in managing hotels and resorts. We are now in the exploratory phase,” Nati said.

Article by Catherine Talavera of Manila Times