STR said China hotel RevPAR was up 93.8% year over year the week ended May 20. It was up against an easy comp of down -38.2%. When compared with the same week in 2019, China hotel RevPAR was down -2.4%.
Minor International Pcl said they expect a record year for its hospitality business on pent-up travel demand and a recovery in Chinese tourists holidaying abroad. Bookings all across Minor’s markets, especially Europe and Thailand, will remain high in 2023 after a strong recovery earlier this year, according to Chairman Bill Heinecke. He expects the return of the Chinese traveler to shift into gear as early as the third quarter and that it will support further demand for accommodation. Thailand’s tourism authority predicted earlier this month that arrivals from China are on course to hit 1 million a month from October, a level last seen before the pandemic. Heinecke said they are having trouble hiring staff for its existing and new hotels as accommodation demand currently exceeds 2019 levels.
Oberoi Realty was reported by Economic Times to be in talks with global hotel majors including Marriott International and Hyatt to manage and operate a five-star luxury hotel property they are planning to develop in Thane, Maharashtra. Oberoi is planning to develop a 300-key property as part of its proposed integrated development spread across nearly 75 acres. This will be the first five-star hotel to come up in Thane near the country’s financial capital Mumbai. The news story said among the key brands being discussed for the proposed hotel property are JW Marriott and Grand Hyatt. Oberoi already has a relationship with Marriott and also has another upscale mixed-use project, Three Sixty West, which includes branded residences and a five-star 220 key hotel to be managed by Ritz-Carlton so they are getting the edge in handicapping.
The Economic Times also reported the Hyderabad bench of the National Company Law Tribunal had approved Dharampal Satyapal Group’s resolution plan for Viceroy Bangalore Hotels. The hospitality company owns the Marriott managed five star Renaissance Bengaluru Race Course Hotel and has around 1.100 crore of unpaid debt. The acquired has proposed 300 crore to buy the company in a court-monitored insolvency resolution process. The lenders, including Edelweiss ARC and Vistra ITCL had approved the resolution plan.
Dhaka is set to welcome four new five-star rated hotels over the next three years as the growing influx of travelers has heightened the demand for luxury accommodation in Bangladesh, according to The Daily Star. Bengal Group said they signed an agreement with Accor’s Swissotel Hotels & Resorts to construct a world-class luxury hotel in Dhaka. That was back in 2015 with completion expected by 2021 but the pandemic and then the ongoing Russia-Ukraine crisis delayed and increased total costs. The property will be called Swissotel Dhaka and will be managed by Swissotel while Bengal Hotels and Resorts oversees day-to-day operations. Bengal is now aiming to launch the hotel by 2026. Borak Real Estate Ltd, a unit of Unique Group, signed a hotel management agreement with Indian Hotels Company on April 17. BREL will operate IHCL’s Taj and Vivanta-branded hotels in Dhaka’s Gulshan. BREL is spending more than Tk 2,000 crore, including the land price, to complete the hotels. Construction is complete but the hotels will open to the public after internal decorations are complete, after another 36 months. The Taj hotel will include the Taj Club, accommodating 60 signature shops and restaurants. The Bangladesh International Hotel Association told the news sources that Hilton Dhaka will launch in 2025 with construction currently going on in the capital Gulshan. The 250-room hotel is located in the central business district of Dhaka city. Hilton signed a management contract with Premier Hotels & Resorts back in 2012. There are currently nine five-star hotels in Dhaka. The location is now capable of providing luxury accommodation to just 2,200 guests.
Online reservations have begun for TIAD, Autograph Collection, the new hotel scheduled to open this July, operated by Nihon Ceremony, Inc. The hotel will represent the fourth Japan-based addition to Marriott International’s Autograph Collection and the first in the Nagoya area. TIAD is located in the center of Nagoya, nestled amid the verdant natural surroundings of Hisaya-odori Park.
Demolition has begun around the southwest exit of Tokyo’s Shinjuku Station as part of a large-scale redevelopment project. Keio Department Store’s Shinjuku outlet and the Lumine 1 Shopping Mall will be transformed into a large complex by the 2040s. Keio Corp and East Japan Railway Co are handling the redevelopment. A 37-story, 225-meter-high building complex will be completed in the southern area in 2028. A 19-story, 110-meter complex will be built on the site in the 2040s. Both buildings will contain hotels and commercial facilities.
Megaworld Corporation is building its first hotel development in Northern Luzon in the Philippines, which will rise inside its 35.6-hectare Capital Town in the city of San Fernando, Pampanga. The new hotel will be the fifth property under the Savoy Hotel brand of Megaworld Hotels & Resorts, the country’s largest operator of homegrown hotel brands. Savoy Hotel Capital Town will be strategically located along San Fernando Boulevard inside Capital Town near the soon-to-be-built Capital Mall, surrounded by residential condominiums, office developments and the Plaza Pasudeco. The 16-story hotel will offer 374 rooms with varied room categories ranging from Twin Suites, Queen Suites, Specially-abled Twin and Queen Suites, Junior Suites, Executive Suites and Family Suites. The hotel will have four F&B outlets, a gift shop as well as several other retail spaces on the ground floor and on the second floor, a high-ceiling ballroom that can hold up to 160 people as well as three function rooms. Meeting rooms, a business center and an executive lounge round out the amenities when the property opens in 2028.
An all-villa Gran Melia property, the Gran Melia Nha Trang property at Vega City Nha Trang in Vietnam is set to welcome guests this summer. The hotel is owned by KDI Holdings and will open with 94 private pool villas, Asia’s first outpost of the Spanish restaurant Hispania and with indulgent wellness offerings from private onsens to Turkish baths. It will be the first hotel of Melia’s most luxurious brand in Vietnam and the second Gran Melia to open in Southeast Asia. The 272-key resort includes private villas with infinity pools, regular 68 square meter rooms and the jewel of the accommodations, a multi-level four-bedroom villa at nearly 700 square meters.
Sri Lanka’s John Keels Holdings is continuing talks with international gaming firms to operate its casino in the Cinnamon Life integrated resort. The envisaged structure of the gaming operations is that Cinnamon Life Integrated Resort will lease space to the gaming entity while a third party will invest in the gaming fit-out. The overall fitout of the gaming space will take 12015 months once the commercial aspects and agreements are finalized. An alternative structure would be a model where the gaming entity sources the requisite international gaming expertise to operate at the resort. The hotel and entertainment areas of Cinnamon Life integrated resort are in the final stages of construction with about 500 of the 800 hotel rooms already completed.
