Hotel industry and travel news from around the Asia Pacific region: AccorHotels launches F1 brand in Nashik and Chennai, Singapore Hotels release transformation map, Ascott, India and more...

Warburg Pincus Partners with VinaCapital to Create US$300 Million Hotel Venture

Leading global private equity firm, Warburg Pincus and Vietnam-based investment management and real estate development group, VinaCapital, announced the establishment of a US$300 million joint venture (JV) to create a fully integrated hospitality platform. The JV seeks to aggressively grow its asset base through acquiring, repositioning and enhancing well-located city hotels in key Tier-1 cities and developing luxury resorts in leading resort destinations across Southeast Asia. In response to the highly fragmented nature of the Southeast Asian hospitality sector, the JV will look to acquire and build partnerships with prominent local hotel companies to enhance its management capabilities. The long-term goal is to capture the outsized growth in tourist arrivals, especially from China, to the region over the next five to 10 years. As part of the deal, the new company will initially take a 100 percent stake in Serenity Holding â€" a Vietnamese hotel management company previously co-owned by VinaCapital’s founder Don Lam â€" as well as in select resort and city hotels in Vietnam.

AccorHotels Launches Formule1 Hotels in Nashik and Chennai

AccorHotels announced the opening of two hotels in India, last week, under their Formule1 brand â€" the Hotel Formule1 Nashik in Nashik, Maharashtra, and the Hotel Formule1 Chennai OMR, in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. Located along the Mumbai-Agra National Highway, the Hotel Formule1 Nashik features 101 rooms and a café, while the Hotel Formule1 Chennai OMRfeatures 132 rooms and a café, and is situated 19 kilometers southeast of Chennai International Airport. Nashik is commonly referred to as India’s wine capital as it is India’s largest grape growing region. Old Mahabalipuram Road (OMR) is popularly called the IT corridor and is located in Chennai, the capital of the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu.

Ascott Launches New Brand for Millennial Travelers

The Ascott Limited, CapitaLand’s wholly owned serviced residence business unit, has unveiled its latest brand â€" Lyf, which will be targeted at and managed by millennials who wish to experience destinations as locals do. The properties will be designed to facilitate interaction between guests, with multi-functional communal spaces and co-working areas that can also be used for workshops and social gatherings. Ascott aims to grow the Lyf brand globally through investment and management contracts, to reach 10,000 units by 2020. The serviced residence operator is on the lookout for sites in key gateway cities in Australia, France, Germany, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and the United Kingdom.

New Century Hotels & Resorts Accelerates Expansion

Continuing its ongoing expansion, New Century Hotels & Resorts â€" the largest private high-end hotel chain in China â€" recently announced the signing of two hotel developments, namely Daide New Century Hotel Tongxiang and Zhili New Century Hotel Baoding. Located in the Economic Development Zone of Tongxiang City, Zhejiang Province, Daide New Century Hotel Tongxiang will be built according to five-star standards, with a total floor area of 25,000 square meters. The property features 250 guestrooms, food and beverage outlets, meeting space, entertainment, leisure and other supporting facilities. Located within Pengyuan Antique City close to Daci Pavilion of Baoding City, Hebei Province, Zhili New Century Hotel Baoding is a reconstructed project with the characteristics of local ancient buildings. The 100-room property features a total floor area of approximately 10,000 square meters. Both the hotels are scheduled to open in 2018.

Singapore’s Hotel Industry Transformation Map Released

A transformation roadmap has been launched to help Singapore’s hotel industry position itself for sustainable growth at a time when it is battling a competitive operating environment and manpower constraints. The four key strategies outlined in this Hotel Industry Transformation Map (HITM) include building manpower-lean business models; encouraging innovation and internationalization; and developing a strong pipeline of quality talent. Singapore’s Minister of Trade and Industry, S Iswaran, emphasized the need to adopt more productive and manpower lean business models to sustain growth, in view of Singapore’s ageing workforce and changing aspirations of jobseekers today. Overall, the HITM is anticipated to help create 200 new jobs each year till 2020. Latest hotel statistics from the Singapore Tourism Board (STB) indicate that RevPAR has declined by 2.7 percent, between January and August 2016, while average room rates have dropped 2.9 percent, as compared to the same period last year. However, despite the weaker hotel performance, future outlook for the industry remains positive as international visitor arrivals to Singapore increased by 10.3 percent in the first eight months of this year, vis-à-vis the same period last year.

HVS India Releases the 2016 Hotel Development Cost Survey

HVS India released the 2016 Hotel Development Cost Survey last week. The report provides comprehensive benchmarks of hotel development costs across seven different market positioning, based on a sample set of 180 hotels that have opened in India over the past six years. In addition to highlighting an overall development cost for a positioning, the survey also defines the profile of the hotels by key attributes such as total inventory, built-up area (BUA), number of food and beverage (F&B) outlets, meeting facilities, and so on. Further, the report provides a breakup of the development cost into major categories including construction costs, mechanical, electric and plumbing (MEP) and furniture, fixtures and equipment (FF&E), soft cost, pre-opening cost and interest during construction (IDC). Finally, the report discusses some key insights that an investor must be cognizant of while developing hotels in India.

www.hvs.com