Accor said they are experiencing a sustained recovery in their Western Australia hotel, apartment, and resorts network. Continued strength in leisure travel, the revival of business travel and an increase in international flights have prompted the resurgence of tourism, with positive forecasts for the remainder of the year. Accor’s city hotels experienced a downturn in the first two years of the pandemic but the group’s regional hotels in WA bucked the trend. Accor operates 25 hotels and resorts across the state. Their Perth hotels recovered to 66% occupancy by the end of June, just five percentage points behind June 2019. Average rate is higher than pre-pandemic. Regional WA attracted even higher average rates and an occupancy level of 65% in June 2022. The standout hotel was Pullman Bunker Bay Resort in the Margaret River region, which performed over 29% higher in June 2022 compared to June 2019. All that being said, Western Australia is outperforming other states in terms of rebuilding international demand but the forecasts indicate the arrivals will still only be 59% of pre-pandemic levels by the end of the year. Since 2019, Accor has opened four new hotels with 1,060 rooms in Western Australia, including Mercure Perth on Hay this year, Novotel Perth Murray Street, the Adnate Perth – Art Series and Ibis Styles East Perth in 2019.
Accor also said they are bullish on India, with plans to open mid-level hotels across metros and budget brands in tier-2 and tier-3 cities but also adds to its luxury portfolio with another Raffles property in Jaipur soon. Accor said they are committed to holistic development involving their guests and partners. Their mid-scale and economy brands, Novotel and Ibis, have a high brand recall in India and a strong focus on meetings and conventions market, as well as the weddings and socials market. Accor said their introduction of luxury brands such as Raffles in Udaipur, which recently turned one, and Fairmont helped them solidify their luxury position in the country. Accor has 26 hotels in the pipeline and they plan to add more than 1,300 keys to their Novotel and Ibis brands across the country over the next two years. They are planning to launch Raffles Jaipur next year, followed by Fairmont Mumbai, among others. There are excited about their foray into tier 2 and tier 3 cities and are actively growing their footprint. They recently signed 2 hotels in Indore and Bhopal with two new Novotel hotels coming up in Bhubaneswar Janpath Road and Jodhpur ITI Circle. They recently launched their 21st Ibis hotel in Hebbal featuring 154 rooms. Their plan is to have more than 100 hotels by CY2027 in India.
The Park Hotels will run a 65-room hotel at the Digha Convention Centre. An agreement was signed with the Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority. A portion of the convention centre was inaugurated in 2019 but the hotel is still under construction. Park Hotels will run the hotel for 30 years. The 65-room hotel will include 17 suites. The hotel is expected to be partially ready for guests who will attend an international event that will be held on the premises in January. It will take another three or four months to make the hotel fully ready.
The newly renovated Anantara Veli Maldives Resort will reopen on December 1, 2022, in time for the peak festive season following nine months of extensive renovations. The adults-only resort is located 30 minutes by speedboat from Male International Airport. It will reveal its new look accommodation, including a new top room category and newly designed restaurants and spa. All the villas have been fully renovated in traditional-meets contemporary tropical style. A new room category, the 148 square meter Beach Pool Villa, is being introduced and will be the island’s most luxurious, with sliding glass doors that open onto a private pool and the beach and ocean just steps beyond. There are six Beach Pool Villas, each with their own dedicated Villa Host. The relaunch will introduce a new wellness concept, allowing guests the opportunity to book a Wellness Villa experience. The spa is Balance Wellness by Anantara, home to a brand new hammam. The resort partnered with marocMaroc to offer authentic hammam treatments. A new restaurant, Cumin, joins the fully renovated Origami and oceanfront Dhoni Bar.
Central Pattana has opened Centara Korat Hotel, the first mixed-use project in the northeastern region of Thailand. Centara Korat Hotel is among 37 hotel projects worth a combined 10 billion baht being developed by the company during 2022-2026 in 27 provinces. The 37 hotels will be developed under three models with investment budgets ranging from 250 million baht to 500 million or 1 billion each. The next up after Centara Korat will be a hotel in Ubon Ratchathani in December. The company also plans to open two new large hotels in Rayong and Ayutthaya next year. Each requires an investment of 1 billion baht.
Gloria Hotel Group will be shutting down its 50-year-old Gloria Prince Hotel in Taipei’s Zhongshan District next month to pave the way for an urban renewal project and cut losses amid the Covid-19 pandemic. The hotel will cease operations on October 11th, in line with the group’s plan to maximize the property’s value. This follows others, including Leofoo Hotel, Ambassador Hotel Taipei, the Sherwood Taipei, San Want Hotel, and Imperial Hotel Taipei making similar moves. Gloria Prince is allied with Japan’s Seibu Group and had focused on serving group and individual tourists from the neighboring country. The group is reported to be collaborating with UT Land Development Group to turn Gloria Prince into a mixed-use complex with 21 floors above ground and 6 basement floors. The upcoming complex will feature a new hotel with 100 guestrooms and set aside the remaining floors as upscale office spaces that could come into service in 2026 if work on regeneration starts next year.
The South China Morning Post reported Lung Wah, once host to film star Bruce Lee, warned it could shut its doors for good in the next six months amid pandemic losses and changing tastes. The 84-year-old Lung Wah Hotel was considered the grandest hostelry in the eastern New Territories in its 1950s heyday. The historic hotel is now reduced to just its restaurant operation. The hotel side had been shut in 1985 after it failed to comply with fire safety regulations so the Chung family only focused on the restaurant operations.
Shares of Chinese conglomerate Fosun International lost nearly 10% of its value today after a report in Bloomberg saying Chinese authorities and regulators, including the China Banking & Insurance Regulatory Commission and Beijing brand of the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission told institutions under their oversight to examine their exposure to Fosun. The decline in stock prices extended to Fosun Tourism Group. Fosun International gave a statement calling the media reports completely false but investors did not seem to believe them.
STR reported Abu Dhabi’s hotel industry reported improved occupancy in August from July. The preliminary August 2022 data showed occupancy averaging 65.2% while ADR was AED335.49 and RevPAR was AED218.90. STR said that is a month-over-month increase but the occupancy level remains slightly below the pre-pandemic comparable, down -2.8%. RevPAR came in higher than July and was 2.7% above the August 2019 level. ADR surpassed the pre-pandemic comparable by 5.6% but STR said it was Abu Dhabi’s lowest level for any month since September 2021.
Hyatt will soon debut the luxury Grand Hyatt Kuwait and luxury lifestyle Andaz Doha in Qatar. This is part of their plan to open seven new properties in the Middle East by 2025. The opening in Kuwait will be the first Grand Hyatt hotel in the country. The property partially opened in August. The Andaz Doha opening is slated for fourth quarter of 2022. At present, Hyatt’s portfolio in the Middle East includes 28 hotels. They are expecting room growth of more than 80% in Saudi Arabia by late 2025 with the expected additions of Park Hyatt Riyadh Diriyah Gate, Grand Hyatt The Red Sea and debut of Miraval The Red Sea which will mark the luxury wellness brand’s first resort outside of the US.
