(Sept 21): At least 10 billionaires, including the likes of Hong Kong’s Pansy Ho and Indonesia’s Sukanto Tanoto, are now investing more than S$6 billion (US$4.4 billion or RM20.57 billion) to build new hotels and expand their operations across the city state.
In a report on Wednesday, Forbes Asia said Singapore’s main shopping strip on Orchard Road will be the home of several of the city state’s newest hotels as part of its rejuvenation plan for the surrounding area.
It said UOL Group is already busy developing the site of the Faber House building on Orchard Road into a 19-storey hotel that promises to offer 200 rooms for its guests.
And that project got underway shortly before UOL opened another hotel just a few blocks away.
Forbes said that the Pan Pacific Orchard opened its doors for the first time in June.
The 347-room luxury hotel showcases four open-air terraces, with more than 7,300 sq m of foliage covering the 23-storey building.
The nature-inspired hotel has become one of the flagship properties of UOL, which is controlled by Singaporean banking and property billionaire Wee Cho Yaw.
In February last year, Indonesian billionaire Mochtar Riady’s OUE reopened the Hilton Orchard, which was formerly the Mandarin Orchard. The 1,080-room hotel was extensively refurbished with a design that reflects the Singapore’s agricultural heritage.
On nearby Orange Grove Road, fellow Indonesian billionaire Bachtiar Karim’s Invictus Developments is building a 143-room boutique hotel under its trendy brand, The Standard. That property is slated to open next year right next to the Shangri-La.
Just off of Orchard Road, the COMO Metropolitan Singapore is set to open this month. The 156-room hotel and shopping complex was developed by Como Hotels and Resorts, the Singapore-based company founded by Christina Ong, the wife of Hotel Properties managing director Ong Beng Seng.
Singapore’s expanding line-up of new lodgings stands to benefit from the country’s robust post-pandemic comeback.
Visitor arrivals in the Lion City doubled to 1.42 million in July from a year ago, bolstered by the return of Chinese travellers, data from the Singapore Tourism Board showed.
The government expects as many as 14 million tourists to visit the country this year, spending up to S$21 billion, said Forbes.
The magazine said that on the other end of Marina Bay, IOI Properties — controlled by Malaysian billionaire brothers Datuk Lee Yeow Chor and Lee Yeow Seng — is developing a hotel as part of a mixed use residential and commercial project.
In Tanjong Pagar on the edge of the Raffles Place central business district, Indonesian billionaire Sukanto Tanoto’s Pacific Eagle Real Estate opened its first Singapore hotel in July. The 304-room Mondrian Singapore Duxton near Chinatown was built at a cost of S$400 million.
Also in November, billionaire Kwek Leng Beng’s City Developments and Hong Leong Group will open Singapore’s first Edition hotel, a 204-room boutique hotel that’s part of the upscale mixed use development that includes the Boulevard 88 residential condominium beside the Four Seasons Hotel.
Elsewhere in Singapore, billionaire Choo Chong Ngen, who made his early fortune from budget hotel chain Hotel 81 in the city’s red light district, has been expanding rapidly into mid-tier markets. Led by his daughter Carolyn, Choo’s Worldwide Hotels bought the 542-room Parkroyal on Kitchener near Little India for S$525 million in July from Wee’s UOL, and is rebranding it as Novotel Singapore. The company is spending another S$1.1 billion to open two brand-new hotels in the Lion City by year end.