THE Department of Tourism (DOT) has approved a number of quarantine hotels to offer guest services even to non-quarantined guests.
As of June 15, there are 35 hotels that have been granted multiple-use status, of which 13 are in the National Capital Region, three are in Central Luzon, 18 are in Cebu, and one in Davao. A list provided by the DOT showed staycation hotels are included in the count, as they can allot quarantine rooms as well.
In the NCR, these hotels are Grand Hyatt Manila, Edsa Shangri-la, Sheraton Manila Bay, Shangri-la at the Fort, Marco Polo Hotel, Conrad Manila, Fairmont and Raffles Hotel, Sofitel Philippine Plaza, Seda BGC, The Bellevue Hotel, Diamond Hotel, Novotel Manila Araneta City, Citadines Bay City Manila. The first four are also certified as staycation hotels.
DOT Undersecretary for Legal Affairs Edwin R. Enrile clarified to the BusinessMirror, “For [multi-use hotels in] NCR, where we are still GCQ (general community quarantine), they still cannot accept leisure guests unless [they are certified] as staycation hotels.” There are 3,166 quarantine rooms available from these multi-use hotels in the NCR, and 2,661 rooms for non-quarantine guests.
Biz guests, social events
According to DOT Administrative Order No. 2021-004 dated May 12, 2021 and signed by Tourism Secretary Bernadette Romulo Puyat, aside from the usual individuals required to undergo mandatory quarantine, multi-use hotels are also allowed to accept “business guests and participants in essential meetings and social meetings and social events as defined as regulated by the DOT and Department of Health.”
Asked how the DOT can ensure there would be no co-mingling of quarantine and non-quarantine guests, and business guests will not bring their families for leisure stays, Enrile acknowledged, “Of course, we won’t be able to continually monitor them, but we expect that hotels will follow rules on guests at least during check-in.”
He also underscored, the agency is keeping a close watch on properties that have already violated DOT regulations on health and safety protocols in the past when they were just quarantine hotels.
Earlier, Romulo Puyat had been adamant about not allowing quarantine hotels to accept non-quarantine guests, citing medical experts that Covid-19 infections may rise as there are no guarantees the guests won’t mingle with each other.
Virtus Awards launched
The DOT approval of multi-use hotels was revealed during an online presser of the Hotel Sales and Marketing Association Inc. on Tuesday, where the group announced the opening for nominations of the prestigious Virtus Awards, which recognize the creative sales and marketing efforts of their member hotels.
The deadline for submission of entries is on August 31. Judging, which will be done online, takes place on September 25, while the awarding ceremony will be on October 26.
Meanwhile, HSMA Vice President Benjie Martinez underscored, “It’s not really that easy to get a multiple-use classification.” His home property, Bayleaf Hotel at Intramuros for instance, is currently waiting for approval from the DOT. It hosts quarantined seafarers leaving for their jobs abroad.
“When they [DOT and Bureau of Quarantine] audited the hotel, they’re quite stringent in their requirements. One of them, [is about disposing] infectious waste, you have to have a certificate, and then they look at even the back of the house, if everything is in place, if everything is clean and all those stuff,” he noted.
For quarantine hotels that wish to shift to multiple-use, the DOT said, they “have to show proof of sanitation and disinfection” as per logs of their in-house sanitation team or other documentation provided by their third-party cleaners.
Widening revenue sources
But being a multi-use hotel, Martinez explained, helps quarantine hotels widen their revenue sources. “With this, we are able to accept essential meetings in the hotel and even social events. There’s also the safety seal [certification from the Department of Trade and Industry], which allows us to increase the occupancy in the function room to 20 percent from the current 10 percent. These are the strategies that we have actually implemented in order for us to increase business in our hotel.”
The DOT defines multi-use hotels as “accommodation establishments that have been inspected by a team composed of personnel from DOT and BOQ, and determined to be suitable for the accommodation of both quarantine and non-quarantine guests by reason of compliance with standards of physical separation of guests.”
Quarantine and non-quarantine guests should also stay separated on different floors, have separate entrances and exits, access points, common areas, elevators, guest check-in services, among others. “Management must ensure that there shall be no co-mingling of quarantine guests…with other permitted guests,” ordered the DOT.
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