Four Points by Sheraton will open four new hotels in China this year.

These will be Four Points by Sheraton Changshu; Four Points by Sheraton Hangzhou, Binjiang; Four Points by Sheraton Beijing, Haidian and Four Points by Sheraton Guangzhou, Dongpu.

Miguel Ko, president of Starwood Hotels & Resorts, Asia Pacific, said, ‘Four Points by Sheraton is an ideal product for many markets in Asia Pacific because the brand caters to both mid-scale business and leisure travelers, while meeting the demands of meeting and event planners.’

Business and MICE is a good combination.

He said, ‘The strong demand for moderately priced lodging coupled with the increase in domestic travel in many Asian markets is helping to propel the brand’s growth to a level that is expected to rival that of Starwood’s luxury and upper upscale brands.’

Frits Van Paasschen, president of Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, is alleged to have said — but it is London to a brick it is from a flack’s fertile imagination — ‘The uncomplicated positioning is unique and assures the Simple Pleasures programming is right on target for Four Points. It also complements the aloft brand’s bold platform, driving solid brand differentiation for Starwood in the select serve market.’
Source: ETBMICE.com

The number of awards in the hotel industry might be considered by some to be on the excessive side. Nevertheless it is worth reporting that the Four Points by Sheraton Shanghai, Daning was recently awarded the China Hotel Development of the Year Award at the 4th Annual China Hotel Development and Financing Seminar in Beijing.

The Four Points by Sheraton Shanghai, Daning was awarded for its thorough planning and implementation of the pre-opening and post-opening strategies and the successful positioning the hotel in the region.

The construction of the hotel was on schedule and within budget.

Construction started around mid-October 2005 with completion of construction 18 months after driving the first pile into the ground while actual construction cost was within the forecast estimates. The hotel held its grand opening on April 24, 2007.

The 326-room hotel forms part of a new integrated complex, Life Hub @ Daning.

This is a MICE hotel and the grand ballroom can be flexibly divided into two rooms for groups of up to 350 persons and is supported by five function rooms.
Source: Asia Travel Tips

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

China Architectural Engineering specializes in the design, engineering, fabrication and installation of high-end curtain wall systems.

It has been awarded two contracts for major new projects in the Chinese cities of Huhhot and Shouguang which together come to about $11.3 million

Ken Yi Luo, the chairman and CEO, said, ‘The Shouguang Cultural Center will be the focal point for that city, and the Sheraton Hotel – Huhhot will be a landmark building.’

This second project complements another in which CAE was involved, the newly finished Huhhot Baita Airport Terminal extension, where CAE designed fabricated and installed the roofing and curtain wall systems.

Huhhot is the capital of the Inner Mongolia autonomous region, and is also the rail linking point from which trains eventually go across Russia ending up in Dusseldorf.

The Sheraton project is worth about $7.6 million and major constuction should be finished towards the end of next year with the hotel opening at the end of 2009. The hotel is about 20 minutes from the Inner Mongolia Baita Airport and will include 350 rooms with a total construction area of approximately 790,000 square feet. Note that in both cases they are competing with the Five Pagoda temple which is a tough act to follow.

In Shouguang, one of the major cities of Shandong province, the company will build the external façade for the city’s new cultural center.
Source: Business Press Wire

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

The World Bank has just held a two-day conference entitled ‘Commission on Growth and Development’ at Sheraton Suzhou Hotel & Towers. The conference ended yesterday and attendees included Senior Minister of Singapore, Goh Chok Tong, pictured here (center) with Neil McDonald, GM of Sheraton Suzhou (right) and Ngiam Kai Soon, Deputy GM of the hotel (left).

Sheraton Suzhou has over 1,000 square meters of meeting space including a Chinese style 486-square-meter ballroom, two conference rooms and six boardrooms. The hotel is designed in traditional Chinese architecture and includes the famous Suzhou-style gardens.
Source: PR Sheraton Suzhou Hotel & Towers

Four Points by Sheraton has announced plans for its first hotel in Tibet. It is also opening Four Points by Sheraton Lianyungang and Four Points by Sheraton Sanya Bay. These three new hotels are scheduled to open between 2007 and 2010 and quadruple the size of Four Points by Sheraton in Asia Pacific in one year.

Four Points by Sheraton hotels cover all the basics including a comfortable bed, a great shower, and free high-speed internet access. To this it adds warm pie, fresh coffee, free bottled water, and a wide selection of beers. It clearly understands the basic needs of the frequent traveler. You get the idea from the illustration.
The hotels are:

Four Points by Sheraton Lhasa which is scheduled to open this year. It is on the corner of East Lingkor Avenue and East Lingkor Road which gives easy access to the city’s primary tourist attractions, shopping areas and entertainment districts. 93 guest rooms, a meeting room, two restaurants and a lounge.
Four Points by Sheraton Lianyungang which is the first internationally branded hotel to open in Lianyungang. One of the first 14 coastal cities in China to open to foreign trade, Lianyungang attracts business travelers but also tourists for the nearby Yuntai Mountain and Liandao Island. Scheduled to open in 2009. 254 guest rooms, more than 14,000 square feet of meeting space, two restaurants, and a bar and lounge.
Four Points by Sheraton Hainan, Sanya is a new resort hotel in which is arguably China’s premier resort destination. Sanya is not only a popular tourist destination, but also a political, economic and cultural hub and foreign trade port. When it opens in mid 2010, the 405 room resort will have three restaurants, a spa and health club and more than 20,000 square feet of meeting space.

Source: BusinessWire

China’s rapid expansion as an economic powerhouse, coupled with a growing and affluent workforce, is driving a new wave of investment into the Chinese hotels and leisure sector.

The figures are remarkable:

InterContinental Hotels Group (IHT) is well on track to open 125 outlets in China by the end of 2008.
Hilton Hotels has teamed with Rreef, the property arm of Deutsche Bank and private equity firm H&Q Asia Pacific, to develop 25 hotels at a cost of £272 million.
French hotels group Accor plans to open 80 hotels in the country over the next two years.
Starwood, the operator of the Sheraton and Westin chains is looking to open at least 12 new hotels in Shanghai alone this year.

IHG’s chief executive Andrew Cosslett said, ‘China has unmatched market potential. IHG has the largest pipeline of hotels in the industry and we are on track to meet our objective of between 50,000 and 60,000 new net room additions by the end of 2008. This is equivalent to opening one new hotel a day.’

Apart from the flagship InterContinental Hotel brand, the group also operates the Holiday Inn, Express by Holiday Inn and Crowne Plaza hotel chains.

China is currently IHG’s third largest market with 22,665 rooms and 67 hotels. Its current pipeline envisages an additional 84 hotels and an extra 29,771 rooms.

So all those rooms have to be filled. IHG, like other hotel groups, is banking on a sharp increase in overseas visitors to China and more internal travel as the country opens up.

According to the World Travel & Tourism Council, the number of inbound tourists is expected to climb from 50 million in 2006 to between 150-180 million by 2020. According to the National Bureau of Statistics of China the number of domestic trips is expected to reach three billion by 2020.

China’s internet penetration is now second only to the US, with 137 million users — 10% of all hotel rooms are booked through the internet — while China will spend $17.2 billion on improving its airport infrastructure network between 2006 and 2010.

Road spending is also soaring with the number of highway kilometers set to double to 85,000 by 2020.
Source: Birmingham Post

Four Points by Sheraton Shanghai Pudong, which was formerly the Grand You You Hotel, has now had its formal opening under its new title. When it was the the Grand You You it was a four star hotel but has now been upgraded. It is in the center of the Lu Jia Zui Finance and Trading Area of Pudong next to the Nan Pu Bridge. 5km from the heart of town, 8km from the railway station, 15km from the Hongqiao Airport.

The 29-story hotel has 338 guest rooms all equipped with DDD/IDD telephones, color televisions, central controlled air-conditioning and, important this, high speed Internet access.

The hotel forms part of the new integrated complex called Life Hub @ Daning, consisting of hotel, offices, retail stores, restaurants and bars in the heart of Zhabei District, a few minutes walk to Yanchang Road subway station.

Four Points by Sheraton Shanghai (Grand You You was much more memorable but does not give quite the image) is fairly central in Pudong and will undoubtedly be primarily a business hotel.
Source: Starwood Hotels