Fingers crossed as two luxury lodgings officially open amid economic downturn

It may not be the ideal time to open luxury hotels, but once you've spent millions on bricks and mortar you can't exactly change course once this boat has set sail. That's why two major hotels held inaugurations this week.

The W Hotel in West Kowloon might have been operating since September, but it only officially opened on Monday, with the usual ceremonial stunts. Financial Secretary John Tsang Chun-wah, Sun Hung Kai Properties executives Raymond Kwok Ping-luen and Thomas Kwok Ping-kwong, MTR Corp's Chow Chung-kwong, and those from Starwood Hotels & Properties (the parent of W) all gathered to simulate sticking a hotel card key into a podium slot, triggering confetti to rain down. Yesterday morning, the ribbon was cut for the five-star SkyCity Marriott Hotel adjacent to AsiaWorld-Expo, with a similar posse of corporate suits, including Shun Tak Holdings' Pansy Ho Chiu-king, Tourism Commissioner Margaret Fong Shun-man, the Airport Authority's Stanley Hui Hon-chung, the Tourism Board's Anthony Lau Chun-hon and Marriot's Australasia executive vice-president, Geoff Garside. Naturally, everyone at both ceremonies was full of confidence and voiced their belief their brand was strong enough to survive. But we're sure that, behind their backs, fingers on both hands were crossed.