Shangri-La Hotels Penetrating India

CHENNAI, INDIA-Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts began operating its first hotel in India this week. The 162-room Traders Hotel here is the first of eight hotels that the Hong Kong-based company expects to be operating by the end of 2008, a company source tells GlobeSt.com.Chennai is known as “the jewelry and silk capital of south India.” The new Traders Hotel in Chennai is situated in the heart of the city, close to the shopping hub. It is owned by J-Hotels Ltd. and cost about US$68.6 million to develop.Hotel amenities and services include room service, laundry and valet service, and satellite TV. Facilities such as business center, health club, massage rooms and swimming pool are also available. Dining and entertainment facilities include Seasons Café; Indiana, a contemporary Indian restaurant; Zodiac, the hotel bar; and a rooftop restaurant which will open in a second phase. In addition to the Chennai property, Shangri-La already has signed agreements to operate a hotel in New Dehli that will open in mid 2005 and three new properties that will open in Bangalore between August 2007 and December 2008. In addition to those three cities, the company plans to operate hotels in Mumbai and other gateways/metro cities such as Hyderabad, according to the company source.Being developed by India’s Adarsh Group, the Bangalore hotels will add 1,000 rooms to the group’s inventory in India. One of the hotels, a Shangri-La branded property, will be operated in the CBD. The second Bangalore property, a 250-room Trader’s Hotel, will open in August 2007 near International Tech Park in Whitefield. The third will be a 330-room Shangri-La that will open in December 2008 in the IT corridor, about three miles from the Bangalore airport. A second phase will include 200 additional rooms and 200 serviced apartments. The New Dehli hotel will be operated on behalf of Hotel Excelsior Private Limited, a member of the Eros Group of India. The 17-story property is the former Hotel Kanishka, which is currently closed for a US$30 million renovation. It is located near Parliament House, the Presidential Palace, Rashtrapati Bhawan and the bustling commercial and shopping district of Connaught Place. In February, GlobeSt.com reported that Shangri-La would open its first hotel in Europe in the country’s tallest building. The company leased 18 floors in the upper half of the 70-story London Bridge Tower, set to open in 2009 on the South Bank of the Thames River. The London hotel is part of an effort to open hotels in key gateway cities for Asian tourists internationally. Other planned locations include Paris, Frankfurt, Seoul, Tokyo, Melbourne, New York City and Los Angeles. In 2004, the company announced its first hotel in North America, in Vancouver, BC, which is scheduled to open early 2008. Shangri-La currently manages 47 hotels and has 20 hotels under development. Unlike its existing hotels, only nine of which are third-party management agreements, more of the new hotels will be operated through management contracts. The change lowers investment risk and ensures development takes place more quickly. As a result, the company is on track to double the number of hotels it manages by 2009.