This article first appeared in City & Country, The Edge Malaysia Weekly on June 10, 2024 - June 16, 2024
The youth division of the Real Estate and Housing Developers’ Association Malaysia (Rehda) organised a tour of some of the latest hotels in Kuala Lumpur on April 23. All located along Jalan Sultan Ismail, the hotels are Pan Pacific Hotels Group’s ParkRoyal Collection Kuala Lumpur and Pan Pacific Serviced Suites, and Marriott International’s Renaissance Kuala Lumpur Hotel & Convention Centre and Four Points by Sheraton Kuala Lumpur, City Centre.
The tour’s organising chair Choy Yuin Yi said during the outing that the aim was to expose the participants to a different property asset class, far beyond their typical portfolios. “The purpose of the hotel tour series is to give our participants the opportunity to explore the intricacies of this particular asset class, by touring some of the city’s latest hotels and by learning from industry experts.”
The ParkRoyal Collection Kuala Lumpur (formerly known as ParkRoyal Kuala Lumpur) comprises a hotel component and a serviced suites component called Pan Pacific Serviced Suites.
Before it reopened in 2022, the hotel was renovated during the pandemic with 110 rooms added and the adjacent multi-storey car parks turned into the Pan Pacific Serviced Suites.
The hotel currently has 527 rooms and features roof terraces and planters. It also houses meeting spaces, two grand ballrooms and three upscale in-house food and beverage (F&B) outlets, namely Thyme, The Botanist Lounge & Bar, and Skye Chill. Furthermore, there is a wellness floor with a saltwater pool, spa and gymnasium, and even an urban farm, which supplies produce to the hotel’s F&B outlets in a farm-to-table concept.
One of the noteworthy features of ParkRoyal Collection Kuala Lumpur is the 13,000 sq ft of foliage that forms its distinctive and lush façade, which also acts as a natural purifier to improve indoor air quality.
ParkRoyal Collection Kuala Lumpur and Pan Pacific Serviced Suites director of sales and marketing Kim Ong, who was leading the guided tour, said the plants were hand-picked for their resilience and suitability for outdoor conditions, ensuring ease of maintenance.
As for the Pan Pacific Serviced Suites, it comprises 210 suites with one-bedroom and two-bedroom configurations, and resident spaces such as a living room, meeting room and lounge.
The Renaissance Kuala Lumpur Hotel & Convention Centre and Four Points by Sheraton Kuala Lumpur, City Centre are housed in a two-tower complex — the former in the west wing and the latter in the east wing. The convention centre is located in the podium that links both towers.
Similar to the ParkRoyal Collection Kuala Lumpur, the two-tower complex went through a period of renovations. The 28-year-old property, formerly known as Renaissance Kuala Lumpur, reopened last year.
“It was one of the premier hotels [when it first began operations] and over a period of years, its quality had deteriorated a little. During the pandemic, instead of going into the quarantine business, we shut it down to revamp this hotel. It took us about three years to do the renovations,” said Bipan Kapur, complex manager of Renaissance Kuala Lumpur Hotel & Convention Centre and Four Points by Sheraton Kuala Lumpur, City Centre, during the tour.
The Renaissance Kuala Lumpur Hotel & Convention Centre has 406 rooms measuring 409 to 2,702 sq ft while Four Points by Sheraton Kuala Lumpur, City Centre has 513 rooms ranging from 323 to 861 sq ft.
The facilities, shared by both hotels, are on levels three and four, offering
family-friendly amenities such as an outdoor pool with water slides, a wet play area, a 13,000 sq ft adventure zone, an indoor children’s club, a multipurpose function room and a 24-hour fitness centre. The hotel’s F&B options consist of Evolution all-day dining, R Bar and H2O Bar & Grill poolside restaurant.
Both hotels share a 52,000 sq ft convention centre and 26 function rooms.
Marriott International multi property vice-president of Putrajaya and Greater Kuala Lumpur George Varughese said the group has opened three hotels in Malaysia this year, namely Moxy Putrajaya and Penang Marriott in February, and Perhentian Marriott Resort and Spa in April.
“Marriott International has been around for a long time. [The company] started in 1927 as a restaurant business and it stayed in the restaurant business for 30 years [before opening its] first hotel in 1958 in Washington, DC. Fast-forward to today and we have 8,800 hotels in about 149 countries. From mid-tier to upper-luxury brands, we are certainly in this business for the long term,” he added.
Rehda Youth’s Choy said the hotel tour is aimed at benefiting the participants, who are property developers themselves and venturing into the hotel business. “The participants highly valued the information-sharing sessions, which gave them the opportunity to engage with and learn from the industry experts [from Pan Pacific Hotels Group and] Marriott International.”
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