The hotel building boom in China continues undiminished. Luxury hotel operator Starwood Hotels and Resorts plans to add 70 new properties in China in the next three years.

Oliver Bonke, senior vice-president of sales and marketing at Starwood Asia-Pacific and seen in our illustration, said the Chinese hotels will make up the bulk of the 100 to be added across the Asia-Pacific region.

He said, ‘China will get more Starwood hotels than any other countries in the world.’

Oliver Bonke was in China recently signing hotel deals. The group now operates 40 hotels in the country.

Starwood has signed contracts for two Shanghai hotels and for a Westin and a St Regis hotel in Jiangsu provincial capital Nanjing.
That brings to 13 the number of hotel deals Starwood has signed in the first 11 weeks of the year. Last year, it added 50 new hotels in the country.

The hotel operator plans to open 15 new hotels in China this year. Its Aloft hotel, a limited service version of the W brand, is also expected to open in Beijing this year ahead of the Olympic Games in August. Five W hotels are planned for China.

Starwood owns eight brands including Sheraton, Four Points by Sheraton, Westin, St Regis, Le Meridien, Aloft and W.
Source: China Daily

Starwood plans to set up at least 30 hotels a year in China over the next three years to sidestep a looming recession in its main U.S. market.

Starwood has 41 hotels in China, the world’s fastest growing major economy, and its Asian business has been bolstered by a regional travel boom. However, Asia Pacific President Miguel Ko said, ‘We will, in the medium and long term, be quite immune from a downturn in North America. In the short term, about 25% of our business is still from outside of Asia — 12% from North America — but that percentage is decreasing.

‘In the old days, the yield for Asian business was lower, but that has now changed. The Asian business is now yielding as attractively as the North American and Western European businesses in average room rate, consumption of food and beverage, and use of the facilities for the hotel.’

Starwood owns, operates, or has franchised 896 hotels across the world. It has 136 hotels in Asia.
The firm has sealed deals for two joint ventures to set up ‘Aloft’ hotels in China, each costing between $10 million and $15 million.

Starwood is reducing its investments in real estate and increasingly focusing on franchise agreements and management contracts.  According to its website in 2006 it sold 43 hotels for approximately $4.5 billion.

In China, the firm’s Sheraton brand is the most popular although the brand faces difficulties in the United States through uneven standards.

Rising wages, higher costs of living and a growing need for trained talent putting pressure on firm’s development plans.

Starwood plans to add 15,000 staff in Asia over the next three years — 98% to be hired locally — to add to the 36,000 staff already in the region.

Miguel Ko said, ‘I think the day when you needed a Caucasian man standing in the lobby as general manager to signal that it is an international style hotel is over.’
Source: The Guardian

It’s award time again. Starwood Hotels & Resorts was voted ‘Best International Hotel Group’ at the TravelWeeklyChina Industry Awards 2007 held in December. Two of its China properties were particularly recognized:

Sheraton Sanya Resort — ‘Best MICE facility and Service Hotel’
The Westin Beijing Financial Street — ‘Best Business Hotel’ and ‘Hotel Chief of the Year’ (awarded to GM Charlie Dang)

Qian Jin, Senior VP of Operations for China & Taiwan at Starwood, said, ‘It has been a fruitful year in which Starwood has successfully opened nine hotels and signed over 20 new hotel deals’.

In China alone, the group has 40 hotels and another 40 currently in construction. New properties include the first hotel under the aloft brand in China, slated to open in mid-2008, and a W Hotel to open in Hong Kong later this year.
Source: PR Starwood Hotels & Resorts and TravelWeeklyChina

In Asia Pacific, Starwood Hotels & Resorts’ aloft hotel has been announced for Beijing. (That is not ungrammatical. Think of the word aloft having a first capital letter which is understood rather than stated and you see it works.)

To appreciate these hotels you have to be fairly hip to the way advertising copywriters take an idea and then run it into the ground. Thus there is bar w xyz, re:charge fitness center and splash indoor swimming pool. And if I stayed there no doubt I would be ga.reth powell.

aloft Beijing will be part of an integrated mixed-use complex including offices, residential building and the recently signed Four Points by Sheraton Beijing, Haidian. The 200-room aloft Beijing will be located in Haidian district, a major information technology hub in Beijing with proximity to the Haidian government district, major universities and research institutes.

The hotel’s facilities will include 360 square-meters of meeting space, re:charge fitness center, splash indoor swimming pool and three restaurants all of which, of a certitude, will have daft names. As in re:fuel.

Miguel Ko, President of Starwood Hotels & Resorts, Asia Pacific, said, ‘We have worked closely with key developers and guests across Asia Pacific to customize our prototype and signature features specifically for this market, to create an efficient product that guests will love. We are excited to be introducing aloft to Asia Pacific and are looking forward to introducing more aloft hotels to other cities in the near future.’

The centerpiece of the loft room is the ultra-comfortable bed, and large stylish bathrooms with oversized walk-in showers and amenities created by, more spelling coming up, bliss spa. Each guest loft is also a combination high-tech office and entertainment center, featuring wireless internet access and plug & play, a one-stop connectivity solution for multiple electronic gadgetry such as PDAs, cell phones, MP3 players and laptops — all linked to a large flat panel HDTV ready television for optimal sound and viewing.

The first aloft hotels are targeted to open in 2008. Some travelers may feel they are not stylish enough or hip enough for such a hotel. Would, indeed, lower the tone of the place. One feels management will look askance at my gray woolen cardigan with the moth holes and the odd food stain. Not quite the image.
Source: Asia Travel Tips