Gostelow Report, April 2007

Banyan Tree Holdings, Singapore, recently took 20% of two projects in Mexico, where it is already working on two resorts.

By Mary Gostelow, Contributing Editor -- HOTELS Magazine, 4/1/2007

Send your news via e-mail to Mary Gostelow, Contributing Editor

Banyan Tree Holdings, Singapore, recently took 20% of two projects in Mexico, where it is already working on two resorts. The well-connected Executive Chairman Ho Kwon Ping is quoted as saying that he sees Mexico as a stepping stone to penetrating the United States. We can be sure that Ho and his team will be pleased to hear of any suggestions for the United States— particularly near destinations to which Singapore Airlines flies (Ho on the board of the airline). In the Middle East, where Banyan Tree has four projects, another six will be added in the United Arab Emirates.

In general, it is well worth looking at opportunities in the “father” of the seven Emirates, Abu Dhabi. Its national carrier, Etihad, has appointed as CEO one of the airline industry’s best-performing and most aggressive personalities, Australian James Hogan. Abu Dhabi is investing in its airline as part of a major thrust to divert the entire hospitality spotlight away from its neighboring emirate, Dubai.

Every major company, it seems, wants presence in Paris, and now an amazing opportunity has arisen for someone with deep pockets. The influential Financial Times carried a full-page ad on March 2 announcing the sale of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs palace on Avenue Kleber, a few minutes’ walk from the Arc de Triomphe. Built in the last three decades of the 19th century on the site of the home of Isabelle II, Queen of Spain, it was a hotel (Hôtel Majestic) from 1908 to 1936. It is being sold by the French State, via Le Ministere de l’Economie, des Finances et de l’Industrie, Paris.

Russia already is seeing a host of projects in Moscow and St. Petersburg. One of the newest announcements is that Berlin-based designer Yasmine Mahmoudieh is working on a 500,000-sq. ft. (46,452-sq. m), mixed-use development in St. Petersburg that will include a 340-room hotel. The development is a dramatic conversion of the Nikolsky Ryady market hall that faces St. Nicholas Cathedral. But soon we will see the rollout of budget-level projects, possibly in mixed-used developments, in other major cities.

Real estate and hospitality are major expansion vehicles for the MBD Group, now India’s largest publishing house, based in Delhi, run by its Chairman and Managing Director Ashok Kumar Malhotra. This development sector is led by Monica Malhotra Kandhari and Sonica Malhotra, who already are working on mixed-use MBD Neopolis developments in Ludhiana and Jalandhar. Now, in Bangalore, MBD is developing eight acres (3.2 ha) in the heart of Whitefield, six miles from the current airport and 13 miles (9.7 km) from the planned airport. There will be a luxury hotel, managed by the MBD Group, that will, promises the chairman, “be in the likes of Regent, Ritz-Carlton or Four Seasons.”

Harry Apostolides recently has been given the added responsibility of business development director at COMO Hotels & Resorts, Singapore. He wants his company—owned by Christina Ong— to have more of a presence in Thailand, where it already has The Metropolitan Hotel, Bangkok, and he would like to be in Hawaii. He sees a great future both for the company’s COMO Shambhala brand as well as Metropolitan. In the past, Apostolides says, COMO’s philosophy always has been to own outright, but now it is willing to consider management contracts.

New Zealand may be far from the usual itineraries, but it is attracting not only a growing number of international tourists but also MICE business, especially from Australia and the United States, with South America on the rise. One of its most popular centers is Queenstown, a global extreme-sports base in the country’s South Island. The 85-room, strata-hotel Sofitel Queenstown maintains admirable incentive occupancy, and a 177-room Westin is slated for to open in 2007. There could well be room for even more brands. Hilton, which already has a presence in New Zealand, in Auckland, is working on something, though first it wants to get its Wellington project off the ground.