Japanese hotel chain to open 583-room inn at JCentre Mall

• Source: http://www.sunstar.com.ph/cebu/business/2015/09/21/japanese-hotel-chain-open-583-room-inn-jcentre-mall-431594
• Monday, September 21, 2015

By Katlene O. Cacho

ASIDE from pouring in huge investments for their tourism business, the Uy family is also keen on growing its hotel, office and condominium towers in Mandaue City.

Early next year, Cebu will have an additional 583 hotel rooms with the completion of Toyoko Inn, a new business hotel in JCentre Mall, said Justin Uy, president of Everjust Realty Development Corp., the developer of JCentre Mall.

A signing ceremony was held in February 2014 between Japanese top business hotel chain Toyoko Inn and Uy, also president of Profood International Corp., at the Philippine Embassy in Tokyo, Japan. Under the agreement, the new hotel building in Mandaue City will be leased to the Toyoko Inn Group for 25 years.

Toyoko Inn is a chain of no-frills business hotels and is the largest business hotel chain in Japan. As of 2012, it had 238 hotels in Japan and six in Korea.

Moreover, Everjust Realty will also embark on a simultaneous construction of the second tower that will house office and apartelle spaces and the three condo towers next year.

The planned condo project is in partnership with a Japanese investor. While the project is still in the planning phase, each tower, according to Uy, will have 30 floors each, with 200 units per tower.

Uy said the company is eager to forge partnerships with Japanese investors because Japan is the next big market to tap after Korea. Improved connectivity with the presence of more direct flights between Cebu to key cities in Japan is also an added advantage to boost business partnerships with Japanese investors.

Meanwhile, Uy who also runs Profood, the largest Philippine-based dried fruit producer in the world, reports “good business” despite the economic woes in China and in other global markets. The firm grows an average of 10 percent annually.

“We are doing good. Our main problem is not the market but the supply of raw materials,” said Uy. “We don’t have enough supply of fresh mangoes in the country to serve the global demand.”

Profood needs a thousand tons of mangoes every day. “It is during mango season that we mostly don’t have problems with the supply but after the season that’s where we encourage more farmers to plant more,” said Uy.

Profood sources 35 percent of its mangoes from Luzon, 40 percent from Mindanao and 25 percent from Visayas.

However, what blocks farmers to plant more is the unavailability of financial resources to grow their plantation. “We help provide the capital for them but it should be the government assisting them,” he said.

Profood is present in 52 countries. It now produces 15 types of processed tropical fruits. The company has four plants all over the Philippines —Bulacan, Iloilo, Cebu and Davao. Profood maintains 11 brands.

Its mango juice, which carries the name Philippine Brand, is among the products offered by an online shop in Fujian, China.