“Costa Pacifica” world class hotel started to rise in Aurora

BALER, Aurora, September 18, 2011-To cater to the ever-growing tourism industry in the province, a three story world-class resort hotel named “Costa Pacifica” started its construction now with seventy eight (78) rooms at a three hectare site at Barangay Sabang which is the favorite surfing destination of local and foreign tourists.

Senator Edgardo J. Angara said that the modernize hotel will charge the cheapest rate among the hotels here in the country and is now being built by the internationally acclaimed Raintree Company which is known builders of several high-end hotels and manager of the Discovery Suites in Ortigas and Boracay, restaurants, food courts and food parks along Ayala Avenue.

Annabella Wisniewski, Raintree president briefed Angara about the project Friday afternoon together with Raeana Cranbourne, who is the firm’s project director, a half-Filipina and half-Australian.

Wisniewski said that the hotel will have a restaurant and cafeteria where meetings, conferences and socials can be held. It will be completed in December 2012, with a soft opening a month earlier.

“This type of hotel is appropriate for Filipino hospitality. It’s a terrific industry because Filipinos are naturally hospitable. The project will also give many attributes to tourism industry,” Wisniewski told newsmen.

She said that a prominent architect Ed Calma designed the hotel which construction has already generated 150 local jobs.

Wisniewski said that their firm decided to build a world-class hotel in this capital town to cash in on the booming tourism industry and to spur countryside development. “Besides, we want to showcase the beauty of Baler as a premier tourist destination and tourism can generate a lot of revenues,” she said.        

“The hotel facility they are putting up in the province is very accessible from Manila and is located in the only beach area surrounded by the land-locked provinces of Nueva Ecija and Nueva Vizcaya,” Wisniewski said, adding that her firm is also taking care of the renovation of the adjacent Bahia 1 and Bahia 2 hotels which have a total of 33 rooms.

Angara said that his sister Governor Bellaflor Angara-Castillo is working on having the area near the chain of hotels into a tourism enterprise zone, the tourism equivalent of a special economic zone with tax incentives for locators.

As a tourism enterprise zone, it will get state funding from the Tourism Industry and Enterprise Zone Authority (TIEZA) which will construct building, access road, water systems and related facilities.

The establishment of the hotel is expected to further increase tourist arrivals in the province which registered a 300 percent jump over the last five years.

Provincial Tourism Office (PTO) records showed that visitor arrivals in the province reached a record-high of 68,395 in 2010 from a measly 11,534 in 2006. The province lured 10,778 tourists in 2007, 27,935 in 2008 and 52,316 in 2009.

In recognition of the feat, PTO chief Michael Palispis was adjudged provincial tourism officer for 2010 by the Department of Tourism.

Back to Wisniewski, she has been in the hotel and restaurant business for the past 40 years. She was the first Filipina graduate in hotel and restaurant management at Cornell University and has worked in major hotel firms abroad such as Hilton Hotel and Marriot Hotel in Honolulu, Washington hotel, New York hotel and in Singapore.

Wisniewski decided to return in the country to contribute towards the development of hotel and restaurant nationwide. She said that the project will generate income, opportunities and employments among the villagers of Aurora. (Jason de Asis)