Braniff

The Manila Hotel is one of the iconic heritage hotels of Asia. But unlike most of the others, it is not a true luxury hotel commensurate with that status.

Does anyone have more information on why it ended up this way?

RichardInSF

I don't know but I lived in the Philippines decades ago for three years and that was the case even way back then. So it's definitely nothing new!

TheBrownPrince

My info is purely conjecture but from what I've heard and seen, I can think of at least two reasons why The Manila Hotel has fallen behind the other Grand Dames of the region.

1) Location - When the hotel was first erected, the area fronting Manila Bay was the most prime in the country. Embassies such as that of the US (still there) made it their location of choice. The wealthiest families had bay view villas or mansions. This area was flattened after WW2 when Manila was the 2nd most devastated city next only to Warsaw (excluding the Japanese cities of course). Anyway, the Polo Club and the elite moved to the masterplanned area of Makati which over the following decades became the business and economic capital of the country. Manila Hotel stayed in its location, which was no longer ideal... especially with today's traffic (2 hrs to Makati in Christmas season) for the high-tier travelers. Manila Bay itself, though rehabilitated through the years, still needs a lot of work as it is notorious for its pollution.

In my opinion, the hotel is good enough for the area where it sits.

2) Ownership - There are talks every now and then of foreign firms wanting to invest in the hotel but I read somewhere before that its "heritage status" poses an impediment. As such, it is owned by a local oligarch family that maintains it to a certain standard but does not have the scale of hospitality operations that Peninsula, Mandarin, and Raffles (all with hotels of their own in Makati btw) do. One could argue that The Strand (also a "smaller" player) was able to keep up but I think that the virtual monopoly it has over Yangon's luxury options made investing in it more acceptable.

MSPeconomist

There was a time when Raffles Singapore was reasonably inexpensive and then fell into disrepair. It closed for a couple years for restoration and renovations, maybe in about 1990. The hotel's historian lived on the property during this time.

One can also give examples of notable hotels in Japan and China that fell from their former glory for at least a period of time: the old St Regis in Shanghai Pudong (now the Hongta), the Hyatt Regency Tokyo, the old Peace Hotel in Shanghai (on the Bund) before its restoration around 2008-2010, etc.

The phenomenon isn't unique to Manila.

I could also name examples of iconic European hotels in wonderful historic buildings that were pits inside for extended periods of time.

erik123

Or the Galle Face in Colombo - which was crawling with roaches when I tried to stay there around 2000. Checked out after a few hours. Some owners just refuse to invest or sell.

Braniff

This summarizes the situation perfectly.

Braniff

I am in Manila now (staying at the Peninsula) but dropped by the Manila Hotel to see what it was like these days.

It is not a pretty sight! The lobby is an even greater train station than I remembered it. Had lunch at the Champagne Room. Quality of the food was low and it was nearly empty. The decor include - I believe - plastic flowers! The whole hotel is very simply tacky - a subjective comment to be sure.

The incredible lost potential of this iconic hotel.

Aventine

The Champagne Room looks like a tacky wedding hall.

moondog

1. The former StR isn't even convenient for travel to/from Lujiazui, let alone Shanghai.

2. I stayed at the Peace in the 90s and again after Fairmont entered the game. I thought it was okay in both cases, and certainly nicer post-renovation, but the renovation didn't make the rooms themselves bigger. It is one of the few hotels that are actually on the Bund (others that use "Bund" in their names are not).