Japan's Hotel Okura Co. will open its first luxury hotel in the Philippines in 2018 as part of efforts to expand its hotel chain overseas, capitalizing on growing numbers of travelers to the Southeast Asian country.

The company has contracted with Travellers International Hotel Group Inc., the operator of an integrated casino resort near Manila Ninoy Aquino International Airport, to manage the new hotel under the premium Japanese brand.

The 11-storey Hotel Okura Manila, scheduled for completion in the autumn of 2018, will stand inside the compounds of the Resorts World Manila casino complex. It will have 191 rooms, with a standard room size of about 60 square meters, Hotel Okura said.

The Tokyo-based hotel operator also has sealed a similar contract with Resorts World Bayshore City Inc., a subsidiary of the resort owner, for another Okura brand hotel to be opened in or after 2020.

The 13-story hotel with 380 rooms will be part of Bayshore City Resorts World, an integrated resort, located on the coast of Manila Bay in Paranaque, metropolitan Manila.

With the fastest growing economy in the region, the Philippines has seen the number of foreign visitors rise an average 10 percent annually in recent years, reaching about 5.9 million in 2016, according to Hotel Okura. The local government has set a target of 12 million inbound tourists by 2022.

The Japanese hotel chain is betting on business expansion overseas, particularly in Asia, as its growth strategy, seeking to operate 100 hotels by 2020, up from the current 72, of which 25 are run abroad.

Under the group's expansion plan, eight hotels are due to open by 2020, including in Yangon in Myanmar, Phnom Penh in Cambodia, and Ho Chi Minh City and Hai Phong in Vietnam, the company said.