DoubleDragon Corporation’s (“DoubleDragon”) offshore subsidiary, Hotel 101 Worldwide Private Limited “(Hotel 101 Worldwide)”, completed the change of its principal activities on Singapore’s Regulatory Authority. The amendment in Singapore’s Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority (ACRA) is covered by Receipt # ACRA220211134043 dated February 11, 2022.
The change and update of its primary and secondary activities now allow it to conduct acquisition, investment, and development of real estate properties and ventures, as well as to conduct real estate sales, marketing, operations, and management of the Group’s projects outside the Philippines.
This is a step forward towards DoubleDragon’s aspiration to export the Hotel 101 brand and concept globally. The expansion may be directed by Hotel 101 Worldwide or through partnerships and joint ventures with other property developers in other countries.
Given this development and the latest easing of restrictions of the COVID-19 pandemic, DoubleDragon expects to acquire its first property for development in Asia by the second quarter of 2022, and launch by the second half of this year. DoubleDragon has shortlisted sites where Hotel 101 is expected to be patronized by local and foreign tourists as well as Filipinos who visit that country for business or leisure. 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 been secured in various countries of the world.
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 also be launched 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, then second after the project is constructed it generates long term recurring revenue from hotel operations.
Hotel 101-Manila in the full year 2021 achieved an average occupancy rate of 96.03%.
“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 that 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.
DoubleDragon currently has 6,165 hotel rooms in its nationwide portfolio that are operational, under construction, and about to launch hotel projects across its brand’s Hotel 101, Jinjiang Inn Philippines, and Ascott-DD Meridian Park. (PR)