Starwood to add St Regis hotel in Bangkok and other international hotel news

Starwood to add St Regis hotel in Bangkok
Starwood Hotels & Resorts is to launch a new property in Thailand with the opening of the St. Regis Hotel & Residences Bangkok in 2010. The 198-room property will be located on Rajadamri Road and will also include 22 serviced apartments and 71 residential units. Facilities at the hotel will include an all-day dining outlet, a specialty restaurant, a decanter wine cellar, lobby bar and lounge, as well as a spa, close to 10,000sq ft of function space, and a fitness centre and swimming pool. 

KHI buys Four Seasons Jakarta
Hotel and resort investment company Kingdom Hotel Investments (KHI) has acquired the Four Seasons Hotel Jakarta for US$48m (£24m). The acquisition is the company’s first in Indonesia and expands its portfolio in Asia to nine properties in seven countries. The 365-room hotel opened in 1995 as the Regent Jakarta and following a substantial refurbishment reopened in July 2004 as the re-branded Four Seasons Hotel Jakarta. KHI will own an 81.9% stake in the hotel.

Golden Tulip increases presence in Belgium and the Netherlands
Golden Tulip has increased its portfolio in Europe with the addition of two properties in Netherlands and one new hotel in Belgium. In the Netherlands, the company has established a new hotel in the city of Gouda, which will open in late 2008, and has also signed a franchise agreement for the Golden Tulip West Ende, which is an existing 28-room hotel that is undergoing reconstruction to expand it into a 100-room hotel. In Belgium the company will open a 180-room hotel at the Brussels International Airport in Diegem in the first quarter of 2009.

IHG to close Holiday Inn hotels in US
InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) plans to shed roughly half of its Holiday Inn properties in the USA, mainly by ending franchise agreements with operators of substandard properties. The company said that it would look to close two-storey, low-rise hotels with exterior corridors and replace them with multi-storey, contemporary-style hotels with fewer rooms and smaller restaurants. The strategy to close the Holiday Inn hotels is expected to last a number of years but is expected to be completed in 2009. By the time the campaign ends, Holiday Inn will have removed about 100,000 rooms and opened about 35,000 new ones in the USA.

By Kerstin Kühn

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