It was supposed to be the showcase project that would bring foreign business people to Cebu in droves for meetings and exhibits, but things didn’t exactly turn out that way for the megaproject.
We’re talking about the Cebu International Convention Center (CICC) in Mandaue City that was heavily damaged by the earthquake that struck the province and the rest of Central Visayas a decade ago. Since then, the CICC—inaugurated in late 2006 for the Asean Summit—has suffered calamity after calamity, having also been ravaged by Supertyphoon “Yolanda” in 2013 and, most recently, Typhoon “Odette” in 2021.
With CICC having fallen into disrepair and disuse, Cebu has not had a standalone convention center to allow it to take advantage of the growing meetings, incentives, conventions and exhibitions (MICE) industry globally.
Well, not anymore.
Biz Buzz learned that Megaworld Corp. of the Alliance Global Group (AGI) will announce today the launch of its new convention center project that will rise on its Mactan Newtown development, just across the narrow Mactan Channel from Mandaue.
Right now, Cebu has several meeting and convention venues in the form of hotel ballrooms, but none are big enough to accommodate the thousands of delegates and exhibition booths that CICC was supposed to house.
The project of Megaworld and AGI—now being run by Kevin Tan, the son of the group’s founder Andrew— will change all that.
The new convention center will cost an arm and a leg, but the group will easily recoup all that based on their projections of a booming Cebu market, we’re told.
Expect this Mactan Newtown convention facility to be up and running by 2025, along with other developments Tan is planning for the Queen City of the South. Abangan!
—Daxim L. Lucas
Speaking of which …
We’re told that Megaworld has also decided to go all-in with its plans to roll out the SuperPark franchise in its growing number of shopping malls around the country.
SuperPark is an international indoor activity park operator, featuring sports-like activities for older children.
Games will range from basketball, football, cycling to digital parkour.
Kevin Tan discovered SuperPark in Singapore after his children played in one, and his wife “couldn’t stop talking about it.” He then decided to have his team contact the owner of the franchise and invite him to bring the business to the Philippines in partnership with Megaworld.
The first two SuperParks will be opened soon in Megaworld’s Libis, Quezon City, and Taguig City shopping malls, but already Tan is planning to bring the activity center to Iloilo and his other developments around the country. Watch this space, folks.
—Daxim L. Lucas INQ
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