October 27, 2025 | 12:00am
MANILA, Philippines — Robinsons Hotels and Resorts (RHR), the hospitality business unit of Gokongwei-led real estate developer Robinsons Land Corp., is aggressively expanding its portfolio with the addition of 1,300 room keys and plans to bring its homegrown luxury and ultra-luxury brands in more locations in the country.
RHR senior vice president and business unit general manager Barun Jolly said the company is currently building six more hotels which are in different stages of planning and construction.
Jolly said these developments would add another 1,300 keys over the next three to four years.
“Starting pretty much next year when we open our very unique product, Summit Villas Siargao — 19 keys resort in Siargao. And then early 2027, we will open a very beautiful Fili Bridgetowne,” Jolly said.
“And then, you know, we’ve got multiple locations like Bohol, Pangasinan and one more Grand Summit in Cebu coming up. So there’s a lot of exciting development,” he said.
Over the next three years, Jolly said RHR would be spending P10 billion for its hotel expansion.
“That is actually just for four properties. Two more we still have to add up because we are still planning,” Jolly said.
“So that’s P10 billion in investments. Because, you know, we believe that Philippine promise of hospitality is very big. And we have to really introduce and produce very high quality products, very premium hotels for people to truly experience the warmth of Filipino hospitality,” he said.
RHR is a diversified hotel group with six homegrown brands and four international brands in its portfolio. It has 31 hotels in 20 locations, with 5,100 room keys.
Among its homegrown brands are Fili, the first and only Filipino-owned five-star hotel brand, and ultra-luxury hotel brand NuStar.
Jolly said that RHR is looking at multiple locations for the two brands.
“So NuStar and Fili, these two hotels are the ones that we are very actively looking at multiple locations, not just one or two. A few more are coming very soon,” Jolly said.
“If everything comes to play between Fili and NuStar, our ultra luxury portfolio should have an addition of a couple of more hotels already within the next three, four years. Because the demand and the receptivity of the audience is very high for these two brands,” he said.
Asked if the company intends to introduce and add new homegrown brands to its portfolio, Jolly said he believes RHR currently has the right set of brands to expand for the next few years.
“Should market dynamics change, should the consumer profile dramatically change, we look at it. But right now, I think these six brands are very robust to kind of grow quite aggressively for the next few years,” he said.
Jolly said it is also in the group’s goal to bring its homegrown brands abroad.
“We’re working toward it. And hopefully one day, you know, we’ll get there. Because, again, we believe that Filipino hospitality is so unique that people should have a bigger context and reach to it. And a lot of it is getting people to come into the Philippines,” he said.
Moving forward, Jolly said that RHR’s focus as far as expansion is concerned will be geared toward the upper upscale and luxury segments given these markets are currently the fastest growing.
“We realized that the fastest growing segment for hospitality, especially for our portfolio, is upper upscale and luxury. Upper upscale, especially, which is our Grand Summit. The Filipino middle class is growing quite rapidly. And when it comes to the Filipino lifestyle, people like to go out and celebrate. They want to make special occasions memorable and that’s where the upper upscale brand fits in,” Jolly said.
“And I think 60 to 70 percent of our growth will come from the Grand Summit. The next 30 percent would be between, Fili and NuStar. So it’s really good to see the spending power is increasing in the Philippines. So as people earn more, they have greater propensity to spend and the greater ability to spend,” he said.