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A resort built
on innovation
Posted: 9:55 PM (Manila Time) | Jul. 05,
2003
By Angelina G. Goloy
Inquirer News
Service
Fiberglass wall
The fiberglass wall is only one of
two in the country (the other one is at Rockwell in Makati). The
wall overlooks the swimming pool, which has fresh (not chlorinated)
water and is fitted with a Jacuzzi.
"We pick up ideas from
our travels around the country and abroad, and incorporate those
that would further improve our services," he said. For this to work,
he sends key people abroad to train and be exposed to international
standards of operations and services. A seasoned traveler, he also
teaches his staff what he knows.
For instance, Uy cooks. "All the
recipes prepared here are mine, I myself taught my chief cook," he
said, ushering the visitor into another one of his prized
investments, the stainless-steel kitchen of the Golden Bamboo
restaurant. "You see this usually only in big hotels," he said.
Much of the resort's look was first designed in his mind,
and that includes the mini-garden right within the toilet-and-bath
in the ground-floor guest rooms. Quite unorthodox, but one just has
to agree that it adds a disarming touch to one's private rituals.
"And did you notice that your bed has a bed pad? That's
five-star-hotel world standards for you," he added. Moreover, guests
can go to sleep secure in the thought that the 4,000-square-meter
resort is monitored by a 24-hour 16-camera closed-circuit system
with infrared and motion-detect capability.
All these big
investments are virtual "giveaways" to patrons. Returns come in the
form of recognition, such as the Department of Tourism's Kalakbay
Award as Resort of the Year for Western Visayas, and the
corresponding award for guest relations officer, Jonas Palomata.
To succeed, one needs to invest more in terms of time and
common sense, so that one constantly learns and gets a sense of what
satisfies patrons, remarked Uy, whose main line is real estate. That
Pink Patio is not his bread and butter probably accounts for his
gung-ho management style.
To begin with, he never imagined
that his six-room sawali beach house would evolve into a business,
one of only three among the 200-plus Boracay resorts rated Triple A,
or the equivalent of five stars. The family vacation house, built in
the early 1980s, was also open to relatives and friends who were, in
effect, the first (satisfied) customers, although Uy never charged
them anything.
"They usually offered token amounts," he
said.
Word got around and soon the beach house could no
longer hold its growing number of guests. When the adjacent lot went
up for sale, Uy bought it and built 10 guest rooms. Another adjacent
lot was bought, and the resort now had 45 rooms. Until last year, it
was the biggest resort on Boracay with 65 rooms.
Of all the
tags and titles Pink Patio has earned, however, the one Uy is
probably most proud of is this: It is home to the Search and Rescue
Group of the Philippine Air Force. The 44-man team, half of whom are
Pink Patio employees, is the first to respond to disasters at sea.
Among its equipment are two rescue rubber boats and two 100-pound
fire extinguishers. Uy also makes available his own Cessna plane.
Formed in 1998, the team is an offshoot of Uy's serious
interest in flying, a diversion he pursued when he turned 50,
eventually becoming a commissioned PAF officer.
He said the team, which
included scuba divers, had its "baptism of fire" in December 1998
when 56 pump boats, along with the floating bar, sank at the height
of a big typhoon.
"We rescued several boat men," he
recalled.
On the eve of my return to Manila, a storm
threatened the island. Its strong winds tousled the treetops,
flipped the tricolor that decked the balcony outside the
second-floor guest rooms, and prevented a local official from
crossing the river to watch "Sulyap."
I understood then what
those giant bamboo-framed screens propped against palm trees along
the beach just a few meters from the beach-front resorts were for:
protection from "sandstorms."
Tucked inland, Pink Patio was
safe. While beach-front resorts braced for the typhoon (read: lean)
season, Uy's head was swimming with ideas.
Guests need not
stay cooped up in their rooms during a downpour, he proposed. "We
can turn the rain into an advantage. Rommel is choreographing a rain
dance, and we'll invite guests even from other resorts to go out to
the beach and dance-to welcome the rain, ask it to go away,
whatever... We're going to have a rain festival!"
Pink
Patio is on the brink of another trend-setting innovation.
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STORY HIGHLIGHTS:
Naked
bodies
Fiberglass
wall
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Sunday Jul. 06, 2003, Philippines
