Best Western sets eyes on Mice market

BEST Western Plus Lex Cebu is looking at tapping the lucrative Mice (meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibits) market for their business hotel.

Best Western Plus Lex Cebu marketing manager Janine Vienna P. Matig-a said that they are very confident that Cebu will soon have more international Mice travellers coming in.

“In our case, we are banking on the strong network support of the Best Western brand which is known as a high quality brand hotel chain in the United States and Europe,” Matig-a said.

Since opening in December, the 83-room hotel is now registering an average of 80 percent occupancy rate which Matig-a said is a very promising indicator.

Most of their bookings are from the local Mice market, especially those organized from Mindanao.

“We are seeing the international Mice group also increasing which we got from online bookings through our network,” Matig-a said.

For the FIT or Frequent International Travelers segment, the property is visited mostly by travelers from the US and Europe which Matig-a said is due to the strong brand name that the chain has already established in these areas.

“We are well known in that region and when they visit the website and see that there is already a Best Western hotel in Cebu, they are very pleased and proceed to book visits here. Cebu is already known to them,” she said.

Strong image

It is from this same strong brand image that Cebu is now promoted as a destination for Mice events and which the group is banking on to increase their international Mice segment bookings in the next six months.

Best Western Plus Lex Cebu, which was developed by Tanchan Business Ventures Inc., is the first in the chain to operate in Cebu. Best Western general manager Bernard Niel U. Tanchan said the Tanchan family has invested around P150 million. /REPORTER AILEEN GARCIA-YAP