Hotel groups quicken mainland expansion as tourism grows
Europe's biggest hotelier Accor Group has accelerated expansion plans in the mainland, raising the number of hotels it expects to operate in three years to 180 from a previous forecast of 160.
It is the second upward revision in four months as the company bets on the mainland's emergence as the world's biggest inbound and outbound tourist destination by 2020.
The group's Asia-Pacific managing director, Michael Issenberg, said the majority of new developments would focus on Ibis-branded economy accommodation.
In Beijing alone, Accor - which operates about 50 Sofitel, Novotel and Ibis hotels in the mainland - planned to add three hotels by the middle of next year to take the total to seven before the Olympics, he said.
Separately, Great Eagle Holdings' hotel arm, Langham Hotels International, revealed yesterday a plan to manage an upscale 400-room Langham Place hotel next to the new Passenger Terminal Three at Beijing Capital International Airport by the middle of next year or shortly before the Olympics.
It will be the second Langham Place project in the city after a 400-room hotel in Chaoyang, part of plans to build up a network of 20 hotels across the mainland in five years.
Despite a surge in hotel beds, some industry consultants remain positive as the country's economy provided solid ground for sustainable growth in tourism demand.
Andreas Flaig, the head of China operations at Jones Lang LaSalle Hotels, said planned new tourist lodging would not lead to a supply glut.
He said that foreign hoteliers had a relatively low presence in Beijing and Shanghai. Overseas players accounted for 11.63 per cent of the capital's 109,700 star-rated rooms as of 2005 and 27.6 per cent of Shanghai's 67,700 rooms as of last year.
He forecast the number of rooms at international hotels would more than double to about 27,000 in Beijing by 2009 from 2005, while those in Shanghai would jump 76 per cent by 2010 from last year.
'Every hotel investor serious about Asia is keen to ride the growth in China,' Mr Flaig said. 'The challenge is finding the right opportunity and platform.'
David Li Daokui, head of the finance department at Tsinghua University, predicted the post-Olympics economy was likely to slow down as irrational optimism had driven stock and real estate markets to record highs.
