Philip Wood, president and COO of the Garrett Hotel Group, Burlington, Vermont, is partnering with Charles Banks, past president of San Francisco-based CSI Capital Management to create a high-end, owner-management company. Banks is now running the Terroir Hotel and Resort Fund, which has about US$45 million in capital, and is co-owner of Meadowood Napa Valley in St. Helena, California, as well as the Terroir Hotel Hana-Maui in Hawaii. Wood says the new company, as yet unnamed, will build or convert, and look for management contracts of properties with 30 to 100 keys.

The Americas also will see more Pan Pacific Hotels and Resorts. New brand owner Singapore-based United Overseas Land has given CEO Gwee Lian Kheng the go-ahead to expand. Development in North America is being led by Steve Halliday, GM of Pan Pacific Vancouver. His priorities, he says, are gateway cities, namely Los Angeles, San Francisco and Toronto, followed by Boston, Miami and San Diego. He would also like more ski resorts along the lines of the Whistler, British Columbia, property.

There are opportunities in Moscow—as long as you have the right local partner. One development, the pinnacle-topped Crystal City, will have 900 residential units, a 500-student school, a movie theater and museum, and presumably retail and office areas. There also will be space for up to 3,000 hotel rooms.

Sochi, Russia's Black Sea port that will host the Winter Olympics in 2014, is desperately short of lodging. The 15-acre (6-ha) site of the former Kamelia Hotel is now being developed as a mixed-use complex with a 200-room hotel, as yet not allocated. The development is a 50-50 partnership between Saraya Holdings and Sistema-Hals OJSC, one of the largest diversified real estate companies in Russia with a portfolio valued in July 2007 at US$2.88 billion. Holdings include the MaMaison hotel, for Orco, in Moscow, and it is rebuilding the Hotel Peking in Moscow. Saraya Holdings, under its Chairman Saad Hariri, son of the assassinated president of Lebanon, is involved in mega-projects in Bahrain, Jordan and Ras al-Khaimah. It is headquartered in Amman, where it is building the 280-room W Amman in the New Abdali downtown area.

Trianon Hotels & Resorts, Abu Dhabi, is a division of the real estate group Versailles Properties. COO and VP Planning and Development Tom Krooswijk, whom many know for his long spell with IHG, is developing Versailles Properties' hospitality division. An initial eight projects are envisaged, with the first opening in Abu Dhabi late this year. Krooswijk is looking for more sites, as he hopes to have 15 hotels at least at construction stage by the year 2010.

Cambodia and Thailand are in the sights of the Sunway Group, Petaling Jaya, Malayasia. CEO Hanley Chew has already signed up two properties in Siem Reap that will complement the company's Sunway Hotel in the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh. Now, Chew is looking for opportunities in Bangkok and elsewhere in Thailand, for both his Allson and Sunway brands.

Contact: gostelow@wowtraveler.net