BEIJING—Despite the global economic downturn, luxury brand Fairmont Hotels & Resorts, which owns landmarks like The Plaza Hotel in New York and The Savoy in London, is expanding into the Asia/Pacific region, one luxury property at a time.
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Fairmont Singapore |
Newly open is The Fairmont Singapore, a 769-room property divided between two towers in the Raffles City complex; next will be the brand’s first property in mainland China, The Fairmont Beijing, this summer. Later in 2009, The Fairmont Yangcheng Lake will open in Kunshan, 20 minutes from Shanghai, and scheduled for a 31 December reopening after more than three years of renovations is The Fairmont Peace Hotel, a Shanghai landmark for more than a century, which Fairmont will operate with China’s biggest hotel brand, Jinjiang. So why is Fairmont, which is largely North American-centric, choosing now to enter the region?
“Fairmont comes under the same umbrella as the Raffles and Swissôtel brands, and it is thanks to our relationships with them that we now have the infrastructure and confidence to enter the Asian market,” said Ian Wilson, general manager of the Fairmont Singapore and Fairmont’s regional vice president Asia.
The Fairmont Singapore originally was a Raffles property.
“It made abundant sense to rebrand this property into the first Fairmont in Asia because of the hotel’s size,” Wilson said. “With 769 rooms, it is more than five times as big as a normal Raffles property and it has plenty of meeting space, which again made it suitable as Fairmont is a big player in the (meeting, incentive, convention and exhibition) market.”
Wilson feels that Singapore was the right place to launch the brand because the group’s regional headquarters is there. It is also the home of the world-famous Raffles Hotel, which dates from 1887 and became part of the group in 2006, which helps with brand recognition. While he acknowledged that the single biggest challenge facing Fairmont in Asia is a lack of familiarity with the Fairmont name, he said the fact that the Singapore property was an established hotel has given the brand a boost.
“We also have good existing relationships with corporate clients in the area,” he said.
Like other hotel companies in Singapore, “Fairmont is not immune from the economic downturn,” Wilson said. Across the city-state, hotels are predicting declines in room occupancy and average room rates in 2009, according to a recent Horwath HTL Global Hotel Sentiment Survey.
“Of course we wish the situation was better, but there are some positive signs for the future,” Wilson said, noting that the new property has seen the fastest-ever enrollment of members in its loyalty program, Fairmont President’s Club
Wilson expects that the reopening of the Peace Hotel on the famous Bund waterfront in Shanghai will be the engine that drives brand recognition across the region.
“Because of its historic nature, the Peace Hotel fits nicely within our portfolio,” said Wilson, and in a country where skyscrapers can be built in a matter of months, the fact that renovations to the 1930s art deco landmark have taken over three years show the care that the developers have taken, he said. Hirsch Bedner Associates is responsible for the renovations, and Wilson said that three factors have been taken into account during the restoration: luxury and preservation of its Art Deco and Chinese elements.
“It is our intention to recreate the grandeur and majesty of this major Asian landmark, and restore it to its place as one of the world’s finest hotels,” said Michael Bedner, chairman of Hirsch Bedner.