MANILA, Philippines – SM Hotels and Conventions Corp., a wholly owned subsidiary of Philippine conglomerate SM Investments Corp. is building more convention centers in key cities in the country to meet the growing demand for such facilities and as part of efforts to strengthen the SMX brand.

SMX Convention Specialist Corp. is set to open an SMX Convention Center in Davao by the end of the year, said Christina Bautista, vice-president for Business Development and Administration of SM Hotels and Conventions Corp.

 “SMX has been attracting a lot of events. We’re working to bring the SMX all over the country,” Bautista told reporters on Saturday during a media briefing at Hamilo Coast, SM Land’s coastal development project in Nasugbu, Batangas.

SMX Convention Specialist is a subsidiary of the SM Hotels and Conventions Corp., which manages the SMX Convention Center at the Mall of Asia complex and the Megatrade Hall in Megamall.

Bautista said that to complement the convention center in Davao, the company will also be putting up the Park Inn Hotel, the very first hotel by Radisson in the Asia-Pacific region that will carry the brand name.

Radisson is a global hotel brand under the Carlson group. It also manages SM Investment’s Radisson Blu Hotel in Cebu.

“It’s going to be a 200-room hotel,” Bautista said. She said that Park Inn would be opened in the first half of 2013.

The hotel, which will be the very first Park Inn by Radisson in the Asia-Pacific region, is scheduled to open by 2013.

Aside from the hotel and convention center, an SM Supermall will also rise within the 175,000-square meter mixed-used complex in Davao which is owned and developed by SM shopping mall subsidiary, SM Prime Holdings, Inc.

The construction of more SMX convention centers aims to meet the anticipate growth of the MICE (meetings, incentives; conferences and exhibitions) in the country, Bautista said.

She said next year, SM Hotels is also putting up another SMX convention center at the Bonifacio Global City