China, 24 June 2009 – Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc. (NYSE: HOT) announces the grand opening of the largest dedicated hotel customer contact centre in China: Starwood Customer Contact Center in Guangzhou.
“Starwood Hotels & Resorts continues to remain bullish on our long term growth opportunities in markets around the world. Today, China has the largest pipeline of new Starwood hotels outside of North America and continues to be a key growth engine for Starwood. There is tremendous potential for us in both domestic and international travel,” said Michael English, Vice president, Customer Contact Centers & Electronics Distribution of Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide. “Therefore, it is timely that we set up a Customer Contact Center in China not only to provide our hotels here with improved support but to better position ourselves to take good care of the needs of our customers and build up deep loyal relationship with them as well.”
“The opening of this Customer Contact Center also presents to us the opportunity to provide the local talent with training and job opportunities. The Starwood China Customer Contact Center provides varied job opportunities in the area. We are looking at having this center operate 24x7 to support both China and global operational needs for Starwood,” said Qian Jin, Senior Vice President for Operations, China & Taiwan, Starwood Hotels & Resorts.
Starwood Hotels & Resorts currently has eight award-winning Customer Contact Centres globally, four in North America, one in Europe and three in Asia Pacific including Guangzhou, Singapore and Tokyo.
Focused on opening the right properties in the right places with the right partners, Starwood Hotels & Resorts remains on track with plans to double its footprint in China by 2011 with over 60 hotels in the pipeline. This year, the company will open more than 10 high caliber, best-in-class hotels throughout China, including Le Meridien Xiamen, The Westin Shenzhen Nanshan, Sheraton Jiangyin Hotel, Sheraton Shunde Hotel and Four Points by Sheraton Guangzhou, Dongpu.