North Cebu resort gets facelift, eyes more international guests
IT started as a resort property that compliments the city hotel property in Cebu City then known as Cebu Plaza Hotel in 1993.
Nineteen years later, Alegre Beach Resort and Spa is known as one of Cebu’s premier resort destinations, at par with other global brands now operating their properties in Cebu.
This year alone, Alegre Beach Resort and Spa was recognized by Travel Advisor as the Travellers’ Choice for 2012, the only resort in the country included in the list.
The property was recently bought by Pacific Tiger Group of companies owned by the younger brother of property founder Bryan Cockrel.
“Harry Cockrel bought the property from his brother last year and is now gearing to make Alegre’s brand known all over the world,” said Alegre Beach Resort and Spa sales and marketing manager Bruce Cortes Bollozos.
The property was opened in 1993 with only about 30 people to help in the operations.
With only seven hectares out of the 44 hectares of total land area, the resort offers an exclusive haven to those who want a more intimate time with loved ones in the northern part of Cebu.
“The property is in the northern town of Sogod, Cebu. Right now, we have 42 very well maintained rooms that we are also slowly renovating,” said Bollozos.
Before global hotel brands like Shangri-La’s Mactan Resort and Spa opened, Cebu already had Alegre Beach Resort and Spa.
However, when these other world class hotels opened, the Alegre management failed to keep up with the competition and didn’t aggressively push to market the brand.
“The main sales office was even located in Manila, which made marketing more difficult since the property is in Cebu,” said Bollozos.
Despite that, the resort maintained good occupancy rates from tourists mostly Japanese and Russians. Bollozos said they were confident they could attract more clients this year.
Thus, after the Pacific Tiger Group, they moved the sales office to their Cebu City office to give more focus to marketing.
“The move will allow us better control of how we market our property especially that Cebu is enjoying a lot of tourists from all over the world,” said Bollozos.
Bollozos also assured they will deliver high quality service for their guests.
“We have about 110 people on board and we hire a lot of locals from Sogod. We are proud to say that they have extended to our guests the ‘Cebuano’ hospitality that our guests really appreciated,” said Bollozos.
Aside from the aggressive marketing push, the hotel-resort is also undergoing a facelift which is set to be completed by 2013.
Bollozos said they are working on the restaurant, spa, rooms, pool and other amenities in the property.
“Soon we will also be adding 44 new rooms to our property to cater to increasing number of guests that come to us,” said Bollozos.
Bollozos also said they were planning to tap the Australian market through the new chartered flights from Darwin Australia.
Bollozos said their resort would be the best place to go for those wanting some private downtime with loved ones.
“Because we have three coves or beach areas, people here don’t even notice the presence of other guests making it feel more relaxing and exclusive for them which is what a vacation should be,” said Bollozos.
