FREEPORTS AND ECOZONES
Trudging Through By January Guia Caringal-Bawat
T
he Thunderbird Resorts and Casinos Poro Point, located at the heart of La Union province, is the only five-star hotel in Region 1. With a breathtaking view, overlooking the West Philippine Sea and the San Fernando Bay, the 65-hectare, Santorini-inspired resort has its own private beach, hotel rooms and villas, swimming pools, restaurants, recreational facilities, event center, casino, and a ninehole golf course. Thunderbird Pilipinas Hotels and Resorts, Inc. (TPHRI), which owns and manages the Thunderbird Resorts & Casinos Poro Point, started its journey at the Poro Point Freeport Zone in 2005. It officially started its casino operations in April 2006, while its hotel and golf course opened in May 2008. From 2016 to 2018, the resort and casino had massive expansion projects: the casino expansion, golf clubhouse construction, driving range renovation, event center expansion, main swimming pool expansion, beach club construction, chapel construction, construction of 45 units of two-bedroom villas and two units of three-bedroom villas, including the infrastructure development 24 Collective / Issue 12
and construction of eight units of executive suites. These expansions paved the way for the Thunderbird Resorts & Casinos Poro Point to be granted the five-star accreditation status.
In 2020
The Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has made a huge impact on the tourism and leisure industry—and Thunderbird Resorts & Casinos Poro Point was not spared from it. The pandemic led the company to suffer a huge decline in revenue, forcing it to downscale its resorts and gaming operations. Once the Province of La Union was put under the Modified General Community Quarantine (MGCQ) in June 2020, the Thunderbird opted to re-open. It strictly enforced policies and guidelines on health and safety, in accordance with government protocols, as embodied in pertinent resolutions of the Inter-Agency Task Force for Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATFEID) and various government agencies. Operating at only 50% capacity, the resort imposed such measures as temperature check, registration before entering the
