Where we belong

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VICTORINO’S RESTAURANT

LAS CASAS Filipinas de Acuzar

Seda hotels are part of their neighborhoods

WHILE hotels usually brand themselves as oases (read: nothing like their surroundings), the Seda hotel group (under Ayala Land Hospitality) is taking the opposite direction. A new campaign, “Roots by Seda,” aims to place their hotels as firmly part of the communities where they are built.

The campaign’s first rollout is in its Vertis North property. During a staycation on July 2 to 3, to which BusinessWorld was invited, the hotel took guests around nearby landmarks: Las Casas Filipinas de Acuzar, the Quezon Memorial Circle, Bahay Modernismo, and Provenciano (which meant a drive around Quezon City’s old Teacher’s Village/Maginhawa neighborhood).

“Quezon City, we all know, has such a nice, dynamic history. It has such interesting stories,” said Rosh Nandwani, head of marketing and commercial for Ayala Land Hospitality during dinner. The dinner was set after a visit to Las Casas Filipinas de Acuzar, which took heritage houses and rebuilt them in a historical theme park in one Quezon City neighborhood.

The Roots campaign also highlighted products from Quezon City-based businesses. Every time we’d enter our rooms after a meal or a tour interlude, there would be little treats like scented candles from Amoy Scents and Candles, or tablea from Heredar. The Grab & Go section in the lobby (which serves as a small gift shop) also carries items from businesses around the area.

The impetus of the project comes from changing practices in tourism, according to Ms. Nandwani. “We’re learning about this aspect of hyperlocal tourism, where people want to know more about this vicinity, within a 10-kilometer radius.” It’s an approach that can appeal to both leisure travelers but also business travelers (who are usually pressed for time).

“The way we want to build it is it’s a different experience, if you want to go and see the city from a cultural mindset, or culinary, or a history and heritage mindset.”

Right now, the campaign takes shape primarily through the items in the Grab & Go section, but they are taking steps to make it an entire package. Asked if the experiences will arrive to guests through tours or guidebooks, or some other shape, she said, “It’s a little bit of each of those, actually. The ideal bit that we want to get is it’s a tour.”

If a guest should opt for the tour, transportation can be made available. In the meantime, they’ll be printing out maps and placing information on the website (we checked: some of the landmarks we visited were already on the website, with their distance from the hotel indicated). “It’s something that we hope you can get in every lobby.”

The group plans to take the campaign to all the Seda properties in the country. There are currently 12, including Vertis North. There are properties in Sta. Rosa Laguna, in Makati, near Manila Bay, in El Nido in Palawan, in Cagayan de Oro, two in Cebu, in Bacolod, Bonifacio Global City, Iloilo, and Davao.

“You’ll start to see the maps in the different cities. You could already start seeing a lot of the local products at the different Grab & Go’s.”

The campaign might face completion in all 12 Sedas by the next year. “The rest of the destinations will continue to have the same kind of framework: we bring together the community to the hotel.”

As for the businesses and establishments they choose to partner with, “We want to pick establishments that have their own old story,” she said. “It’s got to be a bit more local community-oriented, a local story to tell. Ideally, it’s something very homegrown to each of these hotels as well.”

Ms. Nandwani sums up the campaign: “The best way to experience a destination isn’t simply to visit it: it’s to put down roots,” she said. “You get to put down roots in that community, even if it is just for a weekend.” — Joseph L. Garcia