[photopress:location_guangzhou.jpg,full,alignright]Shangri-La Hotels has opened its US$145 million hotel in Guangzhou. This is the city’s first newly built international five-star hotel since 1983.
It’s a 704-room deluxe hotel on Haizhu Island overlooking the Pearl River and will be followed by four other hotels of the same grade this year — a Grand Hyatt hotel, a Ritz-Carlton, a Westin and a Sofitel.
Then there is a Sheraton hotel scheduled to receive its first guests next year and a W Hotel and a Mandarin Oriental hotel set to join the competition for high-end customers in 2010.
Will they get enough visitors? Almost certainly.
UBS analyst Eric Wong said, ‘There has been no supply of top-tier hotels of an international standard for so long that demand is stagnant, or the other way round. But the sector will not be the same in the years to come as the robust economic growth in the Pearl River Delta region will spur travellers to stay in Guangzhou.’
Together with the Shangri-La, the new inventory in the five-star segment adds 3,400 rooms, or about a 70% increase, from the 5,000 rooms of the city’s six five-star hotels at the end of 2005.
The Shangri-La hotel has plans to build a new tower composed of guest rooms, serviced apartments and a shopping complex, depending on demand.
According to Jones Lang LaSalle, visitors to Guangzhou including those from Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan, stood at 5.1 million people, 16.7% higher than in 2004.
Source: EHotelier
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