SERIOUS talks are underway between Langham Hospitality Group and a developer to bring a Langham property to Singapore.
Speaking to TTG Asia e-Daily this morning, vice president-sales and marketing, Simon Manning, said: “Nothing has been signed yet, but talks are as advanced as they could be. Our plan is to make our first property in Singapore a Langham Place. Our Langham Place product is bold and artistic, which suits Singapore. Moreover, there isn’t any hotel here in Singapore that has taken on art in such a big way.”
Langham Place properties usually have no less than 350 keys, according to Manning, who added that the hotel would be a new-built, but stopped short of revealing its location.
If talks are successful, the Singapore property will join Langham Hospitality Group’s current pipeline of 17 upcoming hotels, which will open over the next five years across the world.
Of these 17 future properties, 10 will be in China.
Explaining the development focus on China, Manning said: “While we are a European hospitality group, we are owned by a Hong Kong company. One knows that the North Asian consumer loves heritage and luxury goods from Europe. With the expansion of the economy in North Asia, particularly in China, it gives us the opportunity to expand in the mainland…especially in the key gateway cities.”
He added: “China is now our second largest source market after the US, and we are very proud of that because the US and Europe are often the top source markets for global hotel companies. For instance, this year alone we’ve booked about £300,000 (US$487,029) of MICE business out of China for our London property, which is huge. We’ve also been getting a lot of small-sized diplomatic and trade meetings, as well as incentives from multinational companies from Beijing to our new property in Sydney.
“We hope to replicate that sort of numbers in our other properties.”
