Cebu’s
food, hotel industry
still upbeat despite fuel prices hike
CEBU City – Cebu’s food and tourism
industries remain upbeat despite the skyrocketing fuel prices
and rise in the prices of other goods, industry executives
said.
Clarito Fruelda of the Cebu Chamber of Commerce
and Industry (CCCI) said part of the optimism stems from the
peso’s depreciation against the US dollar.
Fruelda said the peso’s decline would
be favorable to exporters and would probably result in an
increase in exports.
Marco Protacio, president of the Hotel, Resort
and Restaurant Association of Cebu (HRACC), said the hotel
industry also favors the recent development.
He said they’re a bit happy because
most hotels and resorts peg their rates on the dollar.
But while hotels, resorts and restaurants
that peg rates on the dollar will get a wider margin because
of the rising value of the greenback against the peso, Protacio
said industry players are also adversely affected by the same
development because many of their food ingredients are imported.
The tourism industry is not immune to the
effects of rising prices of fuel and other goods, said Protacio,
who is also the general manager of Waterfront Cebu City Hotel
and Casino in Lahug.
But he said the industry growth this year
would not be as good as the previous years.
"Rising prices forced some restaurants to raise rates,
although the adjustments were minimal," he said.
But Protacio said hotels and resorts in Cebu
shelved plans of raising their rates last month for fear of
“shaking the market.”
Cebu’s bakeshops, however, have started
feeling the pinch of higher prices in flour and other ingredients
for bread.
Christopher Ebisa, president of the Cebu Bakery
Association, said bakery owners have increased prices as they
can no longer reduce the size of bread, sacrifice quality
or make labor suffer.
Before, pandesal, the common Filipino breakfast
fare, was made smaller but the price remained the same. But
we can no longer reduce the size, it might look like marbles,
he said.
Ebisa said the price of flour has gone up
significantly, from P600 last year to the current P900 to
P1,200 per sack.
He said that even by increasing prices, the
profit margins of bakery owners remain small. (PNA)
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