SHINING STARWOOD
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tarwood Worldwide has taken its total por olio of Alo hotels to 50 with the opening of four new proper es. Keeping in line with the company’s development strategy, three of the new hotels are in the AsiaPacific region with the Alo Zhengzhou Shangjia and Alo Haiyang in China being joined by the Alo Coimbatore Singanallur in India. By the end of 2013, the group hopes to increase its Alo por olio to 70 proper es with an addi onal 12 hotels in the Asia-Pacific region including 6 new hotels in China.
THE RISE AND RISE OF CHINA
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aving overtaken Japan to become the world’s second largest economy, China is a country on the rise. Literally! A new skyscraper is completed every three days somewhere in the world’s most populous naon. Last year alone, more than $1 trillion was spent on new construc on projects, while an average $7.5 billion is spent each year on concept designs. It is a building drive that shows no signs of le ng up as the migra on of workers from rural areas to urban swells increases. The Financial Times calculated that more than 76% of China will be urbanised 50 years from now. And it is not just the major metropolises of Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou that are reaching for the skies. Many of China’s “lesser” ci es are also exploding outwards and upwards, too. As each city uses architecture to create its own unique iden ty, the building projects become bigger, more
extreme, and o en more controversial. This has presented an unparalleled opportunity for foreign architecture firms with many setng up new offices in Beijing and Shanghai. Major projects such as the Bird’s Nest Stadium by Herzog & de Meuron, the China Central Television headquarters in Beijing by OMA’s Rem Koolhaas, and the Guangzhou Opera House by Zaha Hadid are all testament to China’s willingness to use skilled foreign architects. However, there are also drawbacks. While a design can take two to three years to be finalised in the US, architects in China may have only two months to complete their work. And once the construc on gets underway, it’s the same story with buildings going up at a much faster rate than in the West. China is clearly a country on the rise and it’s in a hurry to get there.
HOTEL OCCUPANCY UP IN SINGAPORE
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otel occupancy rates in Singapore are set to surpass analysts’ predic ons in spite of an 11% rise in the number of hotel rooms in the city. Although an es mated $1 billion investment has resulted in an addi onal 2,700 new rooms being made available in Singapore so far this year, an increase in new tourist arrivals and the con nued strength of the Asia tourism market are predicted to push the occupancy rate higher than the 83% to 86% originally forecast by CBRE Hotels. D|D&C | 3