E-Tourism

InterContinental to open first luxury hotel in Zhuhai
22 July 2009
SCMP

InterContinental Hotels Group, the world’s largest hotel chain by number of rooms, is likely to open its first InterContinental luxury hotel in Zhuhai in Guangdong province.

Betting on the benefits likely to flow from closer economic ties in the Pearl River Delta region and further economic growth following the construction of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge, the Singapore-listed Yanlord Land Group is building a four billion yuan (HK$4.55 billion) integrated residential-hotel and commercial development, Zhuhai Yanlord Marina Centre, in the city.

“We are in talks with InterContinental to run the hotel,” said Zhong Shengjian, the chairman of Yanlord Land Group.

Mr Zhong was speaking after the ground-breaking ceremony for the development on Friday.

InterContinental was not available for comment.

When completed in 2014/2015, the five-block development, comprising 300,000 square metres of gross floor area, will provide high-end residential apartment units, a retail mall, grade A office space and a five-star hotel.

It is adjacent to the Zhuhai-Macau immigration checkpoint at Gongbei and will become the first luxury hotel in Zhuhai, which now has only the three-star Holiday Inn, also part of InterContinental.

The economy of Zhuhai is expected to get a boost once the proposed 29-kilometre Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge is built, according to Mr Zhong.

Construction of the bridge is expected to start by the end of the year and or no later than 2010. On completion in 2016, it will cut travelling time from Hong Kong to Macau or Zhuhai to just about 30 minutes.

InterContinental was the first international hotel company to open on the mainland and is now the largest international hotel operator in the country, which generates about 5 per cent of the hotel group’s total business. That contribution could grow to 15 per cent in two years, it says.

The group employs some 23,000 staff in Greater China and plans to create another 100,000 jobs over the next five years.

It has 12 InterContinental brands on the mainland and 20 more are in the pipeline, including the InterContinental Shanghai Expo, which will open next year and will be the only international hotel in the 2010 World Expo Park.