GLORIA Hotels & Resorts will open 13 new hotels across China within this year and next, bringing its pool of properties in Asia-Pacific and China to 30.
Hainan province, China’s tourism trade darling which is seeing massive tourism development, will receive the bulk of Gloria’s expansion. Three resorts will open by July or August, two of them new-builds and one a rebranding of a hotspring resort on Haitang Bay.
The group will also mark its presence in Changsha and Jishou, Hunan province; Hohhot, Inner Mongolia; Wuxi, Jiangsu province; Shanghai; Lushan, Jiangxi province; Beijing; and Duyun, Guizhou province.
Gloria will debut its economy brand, E-Inn, in Changsha and boutique brand, Merlin, in Shanghai before the year is over.
The group’s vice president sales & marketing, Clarence Wong, said most of the new properties were equipped with meeting facilities.
“The MICE segment contributed approximately 15 per cent to our hotels’ total business in 2010. The contribution is expected to be higher this year,” Wong said.
Wong added that strategies for expansion beyond China, possibly to South-east Asia such as Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand, were being mapped.
