Major hotel chains want more land in Hong Kong

(Norman Chan)

Hotel operators are pushing the Hong Kong government for more land, as they seek to seduce the world's business travel market with the city's many charms.

In recent years a series of major hotels in the city's central business district have closed down as property owners turn their focus to the higher rents available from building office blocks -- and now some of the tourism world's major players are saying they want to set their brands up in the city, if only they are given the space to do so.

Hong Kong island lost 517 rooms when the historic Furama Hotel in the Central District closed in 2001 and that followed the demise of the Hilton and its 750 rooms in 1995. Last year the city's Ritz-Carlton was demolished -- with a loss of 216 rooms -- to make way for a towering office block that is now taking shape.

Overall, the city has around 60,000 hotel rooms in total and of those, 14,700 can be found in the 26 luxury hotels that primarily target the lucrative high-end business travel market. Hong Kong's CBD currently features 1,000 of those luxury rooms.

"We obviously want to get into Hong Kong island but unfortunately it has limited land supply,'' said Stephen Ho, vice-president of acquisitions and development for Asia Pacific at Starwood Hotels and Resorts, one of the world's largest hotel groups.

"Hopefully with reclamation there we could bring the Westin and St Regis brands to Hong Kong,'' he told the South China Morning Post.

According to the Hong Kong Tourism Board, business travelers tend to stay longer at any given destination and they tend to spend more money than holiday-makers and tour groups. But of the 11,000 rooms being planned for the city's new hotels by the end of 2012, only 295 will be in the Central District.

Hong Kong's major opening dates until 2012:

October 2009: Crowne Plaza, Causeway Bay - 262 rooms

December 2009: Cosmo Kowloon Hotel, Tai Kok Tsui - 285 rooms

January 2010: East, Tai Koo Shing - 343 rooms

February 2010: L'hotel Island South, Aberdeen - 450 rooms

September 2011: The Kush Hotel, Western District - 252 rooms

December 2011: The Ritz-Carlton Hong Kong, Kowloon Station - 306 rooms

* figures supplied by the Hong Kong Tourism Board

MS