The Urban Redevelopment Authority has released detailed sales conditions for two reserve list sites at Clemenceau Avenue/Havelock Road and Upper Changi Road North/Flora Drive. The site at Clemenceau Avenue is slated for hotel development. The parcel is close to the popular entertainment districts of Clarke Quay, Boat Quay and Robertson Walk. It has an area of about 5,500 square metres and a permissible...
Hotel
With Singapore hotel rates keeping up a string of record-setting months, some may be wondering: How long can the hospitality bullrun last and at what point will the Republic's attractiveness as a destination become a casualty? Latest figures from the Singapore Tourism Board (STB) showed the Average Room Rate (ARR) in February at an all-time high of S$256. This was an astronomical year-on-year hike of...
Singapore's sovereign wealth fund has bought the Westin Tokyo hotel from Morgan Stanley and US-based Starwood Capital, the firms said Tuesday, in a deal reportedly worth about US$715 million. The 438-room hotel in Tokyo's Ebisu district will continue to be operated by Starwood Hotels and Resorts under the Westin brand, a joint statement said. The companies gave no financial terms for the purchase by GIC...
Singapore greeted 883,000 visitors in January 2008 setting a new record for visitor arrivals in that month. Not only did visitor arrival figures rise 6.9 per cent higher in January 2008 compared to January 2007, but visitors also stayed longer this time round. The top three markets were Indonesia, China and Australia. Visitor arrivals from China rose 42 per cent than in January 2007. Some 3.5 million...
A 30-storey hotel is set to be built on a reserve site at Gopeng Street/Peck Seah Street, the Urban Redevelopment Authority revealed on Thursday. The land parcel, which spans just over 2,300 square metres, is one of the two new hotel sites being released under the government land sales programme for the first half of 2008. The 99-year leasehold site can generate a maximum permissible gross floor area of...
A former primary school building has been revamped into a hotel. The 12-storey building at Pearl’s Hill used to be the tallest school in Singapore. The school closed in 2001 and the Urban Redevelopment Authority called for tenders to lease it out. Vita Holdings won the bid and spent S$13 million to transform the school into a hotel with 140 rooms. The initial budget was S$6 million but Vita Holdings...
Hotel sales in Singapore topped US$376 million last year, putting it in sixth position in transaction activity in Asia. This is a 3.5 per cent growth from 2006. According to Jones Lang LaSalle Hotels, Japan saw the highest activity last year with US$6.8 billion of deals done, a 63 per cent jump from the previous year. Jones Lang attributed the lure of Japan to the low cost of debt. It added that while...
A brand new year is just days away, and almost all hotels overlooking the Marina Bay area are fully booked. Last year, over 160,000 people ushered in 2007 as sparks lit the skies over Marina Bay. The crowds are expected to return once again this year, and thousands more are set to welcome the new year in cosier settings. Ritz Carlton Hotel said its 264 rooms overlooking the bay were booked by November,...
There may be worries about the world economy – especially with the ongoing subprime crisis and rising standards of living – but that hasn’t stopped interest in luxury hotels from making a steady comeback. With the recent entry of a new player in Singapore’s luxury hotel industry, the exclusive St Regis, competition looks set to heat up. St Regis opened the Saturday before Christmas, but even...
AS HOTEL room rates in Singapore continue to set new highs, the taxman’s upcoming formula tweaks — which will see hotels’ property tax bills jump by at least 33 per cent — will skim some of the cream off the cake for hoteliers. The increase arises from a change to the formula used to calculate the annual value (AV) of hotels, which will kick in next year. And analysts say that while the...