In preparation for the construction of its first Hotel 101 project outside the Philippines, DoubleDragon Corp. recently amended its offshore subsidiary.
DoubleDragon is one step closer in its aspirations to export the Hotel 101 brand and concept globally. As of February 11, DoubleDragon Corporation’s offshore subsidiary, Hotel 101 Worldwide Private Limited, has completed the change of its principal activities on Singapore’s Regulatory Authority.
The development now allows it to conduct acquisition, investment and development of real estate properties and ventures, as well as conduct real estate sales, marketing, operations and management of the group’s projects outside the Philippines.
The expansion may be made directly by Hotel 101 Worldwide or through partnerships and joint ventures with other property developers in other countries.
DoubleDragon now expects to acquire its first property for development in Asia by the second quarter of 2022, and launch by the second half of 2022. The first Hotel 101 project outside the Philippines is also expected to give Filipino investors a chance to make their first offshore real estate investment with affordable payment terms for their hybrid condotel Hotel 101 investment.
The concept patent of Hotel 101’s pioneering condotel concept has already been filed. The Hotel 101 trademark and domains have also been secured in various countries.
The Hotel 101 concept is a hybrid condotel model where all the units or “Happy Rooms,” as they are called, are identical, thus allowing all unit owners to have an equal share in the revenues of the Hotel 101 property. The Hotel 101 app for both Apple iOS and Android will be launching soon.
The unique Hotel 101 asset light concept allows DoubleDragon to generate revenue and income twice, first from the pre-selling of the Happy Rooms. After the project is constructed it generates long-term recurring revenue from hotel operations.
“The development and completion of these new Hotel 101 projects will be perfectly timed with the full recovery and anticipated rebound in the tourism industry. We believe in a couple of years, all this pent-up demand for tourism will cause an unseen surge in demand for hotel rooms across the globe,” said DoubleDragon Chief Investment Officer Hannah Yulo-Luccini.
“We have observed that the US has Holiday Inn, Europe has Novotel, China has Jinjiang Inn, Malaysia has Shangri-La, Thailand has Dusit, Japan has Nikko, Singapore has Raffles, but the Philippines has none. We have also observed that in other countries, many have a strong mindset of gearing their businesses for export. Pursuing business ventures, brands and concepts that are geared to be exported to the 195 countries globally is truly admirable,” said DoubleDragon Chairman Edgar “Iniap” Sia II.
With this objective in mind, DoubleDragon believes it’s about time that a Filipino company pursues that aspiration of creating a homegrown Filipino hotel brand that is recognized globally and will eventually bring honor and pride to Filipinos.
“We are grateful to the DoubleDragon team who have, over the years, been able to put together, polish and test the unique and pioneering Hotel 101 hybrid condotel concept and most especially put to life an exportable concept for the world. We are also glad to have been able to file the Hotel 101 concept patent early on,” Sia added.
DoubleDragon is currently in four diversified sectors: provincial retail leasing, with its chain of CityMalls; office leasing with DD Meridian Park complex in Bay Area, Pasay City, the 42-story Jollibee Tower in Ortigas CBD and The Skysuites Corporate Tower in Quezon City; hotels with the chain of Hotel 101 and Jinjiang Inn Philippines, as well as the Ascott in DD Meridian Park; and industrial warehouse leasing with the chain of CentralHub warehouse complexes.
DoubleDragon also currently has 6,165 hotel rooms in its nationwide portfolio that are operational, under construction and about to launch hotel projects across its brands Hotel 101, Jinjiang Inn Philippines and Ascott-DD Meridian Park.
“The aspiration to expand Hotel 101 outside the Philippines has been there. Because of the pandemic, it was further delayed. Now that borders have opened up, we believe the elements are already there to finally put forward this aspiration of DoubleDragon to create a global Filipino hotel brand that every Filipino can be proud of,” added Sia.
“Our whole team will continue to be relentless in our pursuit to make all the business units and brands under DoubleDragon and MerryMart to serve all its stakeholders well and for both to become major contributors to our economy in the years to come,” Sia concluded.
