The Bataraza municipal government is hopeful that the Chinese visitors who visited the town last week will push through with the plan to build a condotel in Barangay Buliluyan where the international port sits.
Bataraza Mayor Abraham Ibba said the investors met with him to inform the municipal government of their plan to construct a condotel with around 300 to 500 units in Buliluyan.
“Their proposal is to put up a condotel. It’s like a community. They will sell out some 300 to 500 units,” Ibba said in his speech on Monday, July 15, during the opening of 1st Pineapple Festival.
Condotel is a condominium operated as a hotel. Unit owners can use their unit as vacation home and have it leased for days or weeks when they are out.
Ibba said the unit owners and short-term lessees would make the condotel as their “homebase when they do island hopping from Bataraza down to Balabac.”
Bataraza tourism officer Junaide Dawili admitted that they are “a bit shy in accepting tourists as we don’t have a lot of accommodation establishments here.”
Currently, Bataraza has only 12 inns that cater to around 30,000 tourists that visit the town annually for its picture-perfect waterfalls, caves and islands.
“Once that condotel is in place, we can really take pride in Bataraza for having a top-notch tourist accommodation,” Dawili added.