Gostelow Report, August 2007

InterContinental Hotels Group Americas division, Atlanta, is looking for more Latin American Holiday Inn and Holiday Inn Express opportunities.

By Mary Gostelow, Contributing Editor -- HOTELS Magazine, 8/1/2007

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

InterContinental Hotels Group Americas division, Atlanta, is looking for more Latin American Holiday Inn and Holiday Inn Express opportunities. It is already expanding its regional portfolio with projects in San Jose, Costa Rica, and Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. Now it has signed four new Brazil properties for Aparecida do Norte, Foz do Iguaçu, Manaus and Natal. The Foz do Iguaçu project is being developed by LN Empreendimentos Imobilários, established by the Santa Catarinabased architect Luis Napoleão Carias de Oliveira. Working through its subsidiary Bonaparte Ltda Hotels, the company already owns three Holiday Inns in Curitiba, Brazil, and it is also developing a Holiday Inn Express in Araraquara, Brazil.

David Pantin of Pantin Hotels, Leeds, England, will open his first property in that city in June 2008. His partners are the Yorkshire Bank, RBS The Royal Bank of Scotland and a local investment company. It is safe to assume that within a short time he will be seeking additional projects elsewhere.

Alfred Pisani, chairman/CEO of the Corinthia Group, parent of Corinthia International Hotels, Malta, is in a bullish mode. Corinthia is developing a stronger spa presence, initially in partnership with Estetika, Malta. It is building a 274-key hotel in Algiers, Algeria, which it will later operate for a local company, Lafider. Wyndham Hotels & Resorts, Dallas, holds 30% of Corinthia International Hotels, and this partnership will give the Corinthia brand mammoth distribution opportunities. Investment by Dubai-based Istithmar PJSC, part of the Dubai World group, which is wholly owned by the Dubai government, is also being finalized. Pisani likes the thought of Corinthia properties in the Gulf, and he told me he wants the brand to be much more prevalent in many countries.

Istithmar PJSC’s Istithmar Hotels, led by its Dubai-based CEO Joe Sita, has many opportunities at hand. As well as being one of the three owners of the Kerzner brand, it is partnering with Extreme Hotels, Johannesburg, and has a big portfolio of its own. Now Sita is working with Tony Fernandes, former CEO of Warner Music’s South East Asia division, who left to set up what has since grown to be the highly successful Kuala Lumpur-based Air Asia low-cost carrier. The airline and Istithmar are setting up a US$50 million joint venture to develop Tune budget hotels throughout South East Asia. Tune guests get king-size beds with 250-thread count linens, but they pay extra for bath linens, toiletries and air conditioning. Fernandes and Sita are looking for some 30 sites in South East Asia.

Berggruen Hotels, Mumbai, is a new name on the hotel scene. It is 100% owned by Berggruen Holdings, New York, and Sanjay Sethi, managing director and CEO of Berggruen Hotels, plans to have at least 80 hotels open by 2012. Half will be in India and the remainder in emerging markets of China, Egypt and Vietnam. All properties will be new-builds and offer “inelaborate” full-service. They will be branded as Keys Hotels for central-city business; Keys Resorts for middle-class leisure travel; and Keys Apartments for long-stay guests.

Qingdao, in China’s Shandong Province that was once known as Tsingtao, is host for the sailing events of the 2008 Olympics. Qingdao might become the location for Crescent Hydropolis Resorts’ first semi-submerged floating Hydropolis Resort, designed by company chairman and architect Joachim Hauser, formerly with Deutsche Aero Space Administration. Incorporated in the Isle of Man, Crescent Hydropolis Resorts’ development is headed by Pakistani-American physicist and entrepreneur Mansoor Ijaz, who is looking for joint venture partners for Hydropolis resorts off the coasts of Dubai and Oman, as well as Rio de Janeiro and Monte Carlo.