Short version: the two unit types in San Fernando share ground, material, operation and contract. What separates them fits into a handful of figures: 56 square metres against 64, a rate starting at 90 euros a night against one starting at 120, and a split of units that is anything but even. Behind those numbers sit two different guests. That is the difference that actually decides.
One development, two unit types
San Fernando, in Camarines Sur, holds 368 eco-villas. Of those, 347 are Standard and 21 are Premium.
That split already says a good deal by itself.
The Standard is the volume of the project: the type that defines the development, fills the calendar and carries the operation day after day. The Premium is a different animal. It is a narrow band inside the same development, aimed at demand that exists without ever being the majority, and in a complex this size that demand gets served with very few units.
Worth settling before anything gets compared. They are not rival products. They are two layers of the same one.
The metres: 56 and 64
The Standard measures 56 m². The Premium, 64 m².
On paper the gap between those two figures looks minor. Across several days it stops being minor.
Floor area registers less for what it measures than for what it lets people do inside. More metres mean zones separate properly, two people can be doing different things without getting in each other’s way, and a long stay holds up without the house shrinking by the third night. A weekend traveller barely notices. Someone staying two weeks and working from there notices it every single morning.
So the extra square metre is not worth the same to every guest. It depends how long they stay.
The rate: 90 and 120 euros a night
The Standard starts at 90 euros a night. The Premium, at 120.
The word worth reading carefully there is “starts”. It marks the floor and not the yearly average: high season lifts the rate, low season pulls it back down, and any serious annual figure already carries that swing inside it.
The interesting part is not the distance between the two numbers. It is what justifies that distance.
Nobody pays extra for square metres in the abstract. People pay more when what they get fits the reason they travelled in the first place. That is where the guest profile comes in.
Who books which
The Standard serves the bulk of the traveller arriving in Camarines Sur: the couple, the solo traveller, the digital nomad settling in for a few weeks, the small group of friends heading out to the water in the morning and coming back to sleep. Domestic demand spread across the whole year. It is what holds a calendar steady.
The Premium serves a different band altogether.
Families with children who need to separate spaces. Groups who arrive together, travel together and would rather not split into two separate bookings for the same night. Long stays, where floor area stops being an indulgence and turns into a condition. And the traveller who simply takes the best thing available wherever they land, a profile that exists in every destination and never shops on price.
Neither group is better than the other by definition. They are simply different calendars, and they fill up in quite different ways from one month to the next.
There is a nuance that almost never makes it into the comparison: how long people stay. A unit type that fills up with short weekends turns over far more, with more arrivals, more departures and more cleaning slots between one guest and the next, while one that attracts long stays moves fewer bookings across the same number of occupied nights. Both can land on the same total by the end of the year. They do not land on the same workload, and they do not ask the same things of the team running them. That weighs on daily operation as much as the advertised nightly rate does. None of that difference shows up anywhere in a plain side-by-side comparison table.
What scarcity does
Here is the part that usually gets skipped. 21 Premium units inside a development of 368 is not a neutral number.
When demand for one particular weekend points at the larger type, there is no slack to absorb it: it sells out earlier and pushes the rest towards the Standard. That cuts both ways. It protects the Premium rate at the peaks, and at the same time it leaves the Premium more dependent on those peaks actually happening.
The Standard plays the reverse hand. Many units, more internal competition inside the development itself, and in exchange a far wider base of demand that leans much less on the calendar cooperating.
What does not change between them
Nearly everything else.
Both run on a 99-year leasehold. Both enter the same managed rental scheme, with the same team handling bookings, cleaning and maintenance. Both start from an estimated annual occupancy of 50 %, with expected growth of around 5 % a year on average. Both go up with the same building system, in the same setting, under the same weather.
The right of use does not change either. It exists in both, with no cap on nights, with prior notice to the operations team so dates can be blocked.
Put another way: nobody is choosing between two business models here. The choice happens inside one.
What the Standard calculation says
The Standard villa is acquired from 109,900 euros outright. The Premium, from 129,900.
For the Standard there is a settled estimate: 12,181 euros of annual income and a payback period of eight years. That calculation rests on the 50 % occupancy, so if real occupancy lands short the period stretches, and if it runs ahead the period shortens. An estimate, never a commitment.
For the Premium no equivalent figure for annual income or payback has been published, and none is going to be improvised here. When a number is not settled, saying so beats filling the gap with a calculation that sounds good.
Frequently asked questions
Does the Premium return proportionally more than the Standard? It starts from a higher nightly rate, and also from a higher entry price, and its calendar leans harder on demand peaks. No payback estimate has been published for the Premium, so comparing the two through a single number would mean inventing half the equation.
Does the extra floor area justify the price difference? For a weekend guest, probably not. For a family, or for a stay running several weeks at a time, that difference changes the entire experience of the trip. The useful question is not whether metres are worth what they cost in the abstract, but which guest you want to serve over the years ahead.
Can you move from one unit type to the other later on? They are separate units inside the same development and each one carries its contract. What does shift over time is availability: with 21 Premium units, the upper band closes long before the other does.
Which suits a unit that will also be used in person? It depends who travels. Every night of personal use is a night out of the booking calendar in both types, and floor area weighs more for someone arriving with family than for someone arriving as a couple.
Choosing between Standard and Premium looks very little like comparing two spec sheets and keeping whichever shows the bigger number. It depends on the guest you want to serve and on the horizon each person arrives with. The Land of Nomads team goes through it case by case, with both unit types on the table.
Prices, floor areas, nightly rates and estimates in this article are indicative and reflect the information available on the date of publication. They may change depending on the phase of the development, the specific unit and its availability. This article will be updated once the final figures are confirmed. Income and payback estimates rest on occupancy assumptions and are not a guarantee of results. For the current terms on a specific unit, speak with the Land of Nomads team.
