Melia Hotels and UAE Investor May Sign $1 Billion Joint Venture

25.08.2023 - 13:39 / skift.com / Sean Oneill

Here are some excerpts from Daily Lodging Report from the past week. If you’re not a subscriber, you should be. Get news on hotel deals, development, stocks, and career moves. Sign up here, now.

In June, SJM will open the 271-room Karl Lagerfeld Hotel on Cotai in Macau. The project was initially unveiled in 2014 but was delayed for various reasons including the pandemic. The Karl Lagerfeld is part of the Grand Lisboa Palace luxury development. Located in a 20-story tower, the five-star Lagerfeld hotel has spacious rooms and suites ranging from 650 square feet to 3,750 square feet with headboards on king-sized beds inspired by Chinese coins and vases handmade in Jingdezhen. The Book Lounge features some 4,000 volumes as part of the décor.

The South China Morning Post said Magnificent Hotel Investment plans to spend up to about $250 million (HK$2 billion) to increase the number of rooms in its portfolio by a third. Magnificent already owns nine hotels, with seven in Hong Kong, one each in Shanghai and London. If they accomplish their goal, they would become one of the five largest hotel operators in Hong Kong. Their latest acquisition was the Bay Bridge Lifestyle Retreat, a 435-room waterfront hotel in the New Territories overlooking Tsing Ma Bridge. Read: “Hong Kong hotel property buying spree looms as investors bet on tourism rebound, analysts say.”

The Rosewood Ranfaru in the Maldives is expected to open in 2027, stretched across a striking chain of private islands around a pristine lagoon in the South Male Atoll, situated less than an hour away from Velana International Airport in Male. The Rosewood Ranfaru will offer approximately 120 beachfront and overwater villas, ranging in size from one to five bedrooms, all with private pools and a select number located on private islands.

Indian Hotels Company said they plan to add another 20 hotels to its domestic portfolio in FY24 and another 2-3 internationally while they are on track to reach 300 hotels by 2025. They opened 16 new hotels in FY23, and in the current fiscal they intend to open another 20 hotels in India across their Taj, Vivanta, SeleQtions and Ginger brands in major locations. They are opening a Taj hotel in Vikhroli in Mumbai with Godrej Group and a new Ginger at Santacruz in Mumbai. The Taj will be a management contract and the Ginger wholly owned by the company. IHCL is also looking to open about 2-3 hotels in Bhutan, Sri Lanka, or Nepal as well as opening hotels in global destinations.

Skift Take: For context, see Skift’s piece on Rosewood’s strategy and our piece on Indian Hotels Company Ltd’s first-quarter earnings and the overall strategy of the Indian powerhouse.

A solid beat and raise was repeated over and over again today by