| Starwood Hotels and Resorts has announced its agreement
with Rajadamri Residence Company Limited, a subsidiary of Minor International
PCL, to manage a St Regis Hotel and Residences located along Rajadamri Road,
opposite the Royal Bangkok Sports Club in Bangkok, Thailand. With convenient
access to the Rajadamri BTS station and Bangkok's main commercial, residential
and retail districts, St Regis Hotel and Residences Bangkok is expected
to open in 2010 and will offer 198 guestrooms, 22 serviced apartments, 71
residential units, two food and beverage outlets, a bar, a wine cellar,
a signature spa, over 10,000 square feet of function space, St Regis' signature
butler service and other facilities. |
| The Philippine Board of Investments (BOI) has approved
Phil. BXT Corporation's Imperial Palace Waterpark Resort and Spa project
in Cebu, Philippines. Endorsed and certified as a class "AAA"
resort by the Department of Tourism (DOT), the project will comprise of
six medium-rise buildings, three-storey townhouses and 20 two-storey pool
villas. Scheduled to be opened in 2009, the US$52 million development will
offer 616 guestrooms, sports and recreational facilities, food and beverage
outlets and other support facilities. With the limited number of existing
five-star hotels in Cebu, the local authorities are hopeful this project
will ease some of Cebu's supply crunch. |
| Hawaii's Outrigger Hotels and Resorts has re-entered
the Australian market to manage the US$255 million Viridian Resort and Spa
on Noosa Hill, Queensland, Australia. This comes five months after MFS Group
concluded their acquisition of Outrigger's operations in Australia for US$102
million in March 2007. Occupying a total land area of 20 hectares, the 192-room
Viridian resort will offer ocean and greenery views of the Laguna Bay and
Noosa National Park, food and beverage outlets and conference facilities.
The resort, which is co-developed by Leighton Properties and Macquarie Bank,
is expected to commence operations in late 2009. |
| India-based IHHR Hospitality Pvt Ltd (IHHR) plans
to invest US$335 million from 2008 to 2010 to develop three new Ananda spas,
two in India and one in Maldives, and seven Ista business hotels in the
Indian cities of Ahmedabad, Amritsar, Pune, Nagpur, Coimbatore, Chandigarh
and Navi Mumbai. At an average development cost of US$32 million per hotel
and US$37 million per spa facility, IHHR's hotels are expected to offer
premium services to the business and corporate segments. IHHR intends to
utilise the US$43 million sales proceeds from its 15% equity divestment
to Morgan Stanley in April 2007 to fund these expansion activities. |
| Dubai-based property company, Emaar Properties
LLC (Emaar), plans to invest approximately US$650 million in the Lombok
Tourism Development Centre (LTDC), a masterplanned tourism area located
in Lombok Island, West Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia. According to local authorities,
an agreement between Emaar and the Indonesian government has been signed
under which Emaar will build several tourism facilities, including a hotel,
in the LTDC, while the government will give Emaar an 80-year working contract
over the LTDC. Work is expected to commence concurrently with the development
of a new international airport in Lombok, which is expected to be operational
in 2009. |
| The Tibetan authorities, in collaboration with
Peking University, have devised a long term sustainable tourism development
plan for the region along the Qinghai-Tibet Railway. With support from the
China National Tourism Administration, the local authorities recognise the
potential benefits of tourism and this plan aims to strike a balance between
promoting tourism and preserving the fragile environment of Tibet. It is
hoped that the region will evolve into a top quality tourist destination
attracting three million tourists annually with average lengths of stay
of seven to 12 days by year 2020. Family hotels, small scale inns and non
permanent facilities with strong local cultural and architectural features,
totalling 85,100 hotel rooms, are expected to be required along the railway
by 2020, most of which to be located in major towns such as Lhasa, Nagqu,
Golmud and Xining. |
