The Official Website of the Province of Cebu is continuously being improved to better serve every Cebuano. Some photos featured on this site are sourced from third-party contributors — proper credit is given to the original owners whenever applicable.
Dr. Brian To’s programs are built around a common objective: helping individuals, organizations, businesses, and governments think more strategically and translate insight into action.
From executive leadership and human behavior to public-sector strategy and economic development, these programs combine strategic thinking with practical application.
Redefining the Scale of Cebu’s Hospitality and Investment Ambition
NUSTAR Resort Cebu has emerged as one of the most visible symbols of Cebu’s continuing transformation into a major business, tourism, entertainment, and lifestyle destination. Located on Kawit Island at the South Road Properties, NUSTAR describes itself as a premier integrated resort bringing together hotels, dining, retail, entertainment, gaming, leisure, and meetings and events in one development. Its hospitality portfolio currently includes Fili Hotel and NUSTAR Hotel, while its growing convention and function facilities position the property to serve Cebu’s expanding meetings and events economy.
NUSTAR is also significant because of what the development represents economically. Its presence at the South Road Properties demonstrates the scale of capital and long-term confidence increasingly being placed in Cebu. The development is the flagship integrated-resort project of Universal Hotels and Resorts, Inc., associated with the Gokongwei Group, and has been positioned around making Cebu competitive for premium tourism, entertainment, retail, hospitality, and major events.
As a Cebu Economic Forum partner, NUSTAR reflects an important part of the CEF 4.0 conversation: investment becomes meaningful when capital is translated into physical assets, employment, tourism activity, supplier opportunities, new experiences, and greater confidence in a destination. Its growing meetings and events infrastructure is equally aligned with Cebu’s ambition to attract larger business gatherings, conferences, investment missions, and high-value visitors.
Kawit Island, South Road Properties, Cebu City 6000, Philippines
(032) 888-8282
info@nustar.com.ph
https://nustar.ph
Cebuano Hospitality at the Center of Business and Tourism
Golden Prince Hotel & Suites represents a different but equally important part of Cebu’s hospitality economy: a locally rooted city hotel serving leisure travelers, business guests, functions, meetings, and events. Located along Acacia Street at Archbishop Reyes Avenue in Cebu City, the hotel combines accommodation, dining, wellness facilities, and spaces designed for productive gatherings and social occasions.
Its identity is closely connected to Cebuano hospitality. Golden Prince emphasizes genuine, heartfelt service alongside well-appointed accommodations, food, and modern amenities. Particularly relevant to Cebu’s broader economic ecosystem is the hotel’s emphasis on using fresh produce, including ingredients sourced from local farmers. That creates an important reminder that tourism does not operate in isolation: a hotel can create value not only for its guests and employees, but also for food producers, transport providers, event suppliers, and other businesses around it.
For Cebu Economic Forum 4.0, Golden Prince represents the enterprises that make Cebu function every day. The province’s economic future will not depend only on headline-making investments. It will also depend on established businesses that employ people, support suppliers, host business activity, provide quality services, and keep improving the Cebu visitor and business experience. Golden Prince demonstrates how locally grounded hospitality can contribute to the wider economic multiplier created by tourism and commerce.
Acacia Street corner Archbishop Reyes Avenue, Cebu City 6000, Philippines
+63 32 233-8660 +63 917 322 8660 / +63 918 951 5498
reservations@goldenprincehotel.com
https://goldenprincehotel.com
A Homegrown Cebu Hospitality Brand With Enduring Filipino Character
Bluewater Maribago Beach Resort is one of Cebu’s long-established homegrown tourism brands. Established in July 1989, the Mactan property is the flagship of the Bluewater Resorts group, a wholly Filipino-owned hospitality company that has built its brand around Filipino warmth, care, creativity, friendliness, and a distinctive sense of place.
From its beachfront home in Buyong, Maribago, Lapu-Lapu City, Bluewater Maribago has grown alongside Cebu’s development into an internationally recognized island and tourism destination. The larger Bluewater family now includes Bluewater Sumilon in Oslob and Bluewater Panglao in Bohol, but Maribago remains the flagship property—the Cebu foundation from which the hospitality brand expanded.
Its relevance to Cebu Economic Forum 4.0 goes beyond tourism. Bluewater demonstrates that Cebu can create homegrown businesses capable of building enduring brands without losing their Filipino identity. Cebu’s investment strategy needs outside capital, but it equally needs local companies that can scale, innovate, create employment, strengthen destinations, and compete through something difficult for competitors to replicate: authentic Filipino and Cebuano experience.
Buyong, Maribago, Lapu-Lapu City, Cebu 6015, Philippines
(+63 32 263-4410 / +63 32 263-4422)(+63 998 843 7688)
maribago@bluewater.com.ph
https://bluewatermaribago.com.ph
From Cebu Enterprise to Global Philippine Food Exporter
Profood International Corporation is a powerful example of how a Cebu-rooted enterprise can grow from a small beginning into an international manufacturing business. According to the company, Profood began as a family operation from a home kitchen in 1978 and developed into one of the Philippines’ major producers of processed tropical fruit products. Its product categories now include dried and frozen fruits, purees, concentrates, juices, preserves, and other value-added fruit products.
From its Central Visayas headquarters in Mandaue City, Profood has developed a market reach extending far beyond Cebu. The company says its products are sold in more than 50 countries across Asia, the Middle East, Europe, the Americas, the Caribbean, and Oceania. It operates multiple manufacturing locations in the Philippines and has built its international business around transforming Philippine agricultural products—particularly tropical fruits—into products capable of competing in overseas markets.
That story makes Profood particularly relevant to Cebu Economic Forum 4.0. Cebu’s next economic chapter cannot rely only on consumption, construction, tourism, or imported investment. It also needs businesses that manufacture, create value locally, connect agriculture with industry, export Philippine products, and build brands capable of succeeding internationally. Profood demonstrates what can happen when local resources, entrepreneurship, manufacturing capability, quality systems, and global market access are brought together.
Highway, Maguikay, Mandaue City 6014, Metro Cebu, Philippines
+63 32 346-1228; +63 32 346-7732 to 36
sales@profoodcorp.com
https://profoodcorp.com
Connecting Business, Government, and Cebu’s Economic Agenda
The Cebu Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Inc. (CCCI) occupies a distinctive place in the story of the Cebu Economic Forum. CCCI helped provide private-sector institutional continuity during the first three editions of the Forum, connecting the economic conversation with Cebu’s organized business community.
The Chamber’s own mission centers on strengthening the capabilities of its members through advocacy, linkages, and synergy toward improving the competitiveness of Cebu and its people in the global economy. Its work encompasses business advocacy, member development, institutional partnerships, international engagement, business matching, and programs intended to help Cebu enterprises strengthen their competitiveness.
Its continuing relevance to Cebu Economic Forum 4.0 is therefore fundamental. Government can identify development priorities, but businesses understand the realities of customers, capital, operating costs, regulations, talent, competition, and markets. CCCI provides an institutional bridge between those worlds. In the context of CEF, the Chamber represents the principle that Cebu’s economic strategy becomes stronger when government listens to business and business participates constructively in shaping Cebu’s future.
3rd Floor, Cebu Chamber Centre, corner Commerce & Industry Streets, Barangay Tejero, North Reclamation Area, Cebu City 6000
+63 32 232-1421 to 24
info@cebuchamber.org
https://cebuchamber.org
Connecting Opportunity With Capital
Every serious investment conversation eventually reaches one unavoidable question:
That makes financial institutions essential participants in an investment-driven economic ecosystem. Bank of Commerce, or BankCom, provides banking and financial services to individuals and businesses and positions its corporate purpose around helping clients, communities, employees, and stakeholders prosper while supporting broader nation-building.
Its connection to Cebu is also tangible. BankCom maintains a meaningful branch presence in the Cebu market. As recently as May 2026, its official branch advisories identified operations including Cebu Main, Cebu F. Cabahug, Cebu Banilad, Cebu Sto. Niño, Mandaue NRA, Mandaue, and Lapu-Lapu. This physical presence matters because capital access is not merely a national discussion; businesses and investors need financial institutions able to understand and serve regional markets.
For Cebu Economic Forum 4.0, Bank of Commerce represents one of the critical pieces required to move from opportunity to transaction. Promising projects require financing. Expanding enterprises require working capital. Investors require financial infrastructure. Developers require banking relationships. Growing businesses need partners capable of helping them structure and fund their next stage. Bringing finance into the same ecosystem as government, project proponents, businesses, and investors is precisely what allows an economic forum to evolve from discussion into execution.
+63 2 8-632-2265
1800-10-982-6000 (PLDT) / 1800-8-982-6000 (Globe)
+63 2 8-982-6161
https://www.bankcom.com.ph
customerservice@bankcom.com.ph
Each featured partner represents a different component of what makes an economy work.
Together, they illustrate an important principle behind Cebu Economic Forum 4.0
