WITH hospitality giants consolidating and adding more properties to their already-sizeable repertoire, Anand Nadathur, CEO of SilverNeedle Hospitality, sees an opportunity for his relatively smaller brand to carve out a niche.
“As these companies grow larger, we think a lot of the services and experiences will become more commoditised because if you are large you have to standardise. That gives us an opportunity to bring about something unique and differentiated as you have a segment of the travel population that does not want a commoditised experience,” he said.
SilverNeedle currently has a modest portfolio of 48 properties, mostly in Australia, its anchor market. But Nadathur said that they’ve now trained their sights on Asia and are planning to expand in the region.
“Our market for growth is going to be South-east Asia and South Asia, specifically India and Sri Lanka. In South-east Asia we currently have three properties, and another four to six in the pipeline. We also have a mixed-use development under construction in Sri Lanka’s Colombo city centre,” he said.
However, while the company is based in Singapore, they currently do not have a property in the country. He explained that they are “constantly looking for opportunities” but the opportunity hasn’t presented itself yet. He further expressed that he would “love to have one in Singapore”.
The group recently announced the opening of its newest property, a Sage Hotel in west Perth comprising 101 guestrooms in four configurations. Other facilities at the A$35 million (US$25.8 million) dollar development include a restaurant called Julio’s and two function rooms.
