Starwood Hotels Spends NYE Opening Three Hotels in China

By Barbra Murray, Contributing Editor

Sheraton Zhengzhou

On the very last day of 2014, Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc. made a big splash in its China expansion endeavor with the announcement of the opening of not one, not two, but three hotels totaling 929 guestrooms.

Starwood Hotels is one of many leading lodging companies that are targeting China for expansion. And they have good reason to do so. “In emerging markets, there remains massive potential for hotel demand growth even during a comparative slow patch in overall economic growth. China is the best example of where there are real opportunities,” according to a report by U.K. research publisher Hotel Analyst.

Starwood Hotels’ Sheraton Zhengzhou Hotel debuted in Zhengzhou, in Central China’s Henan Province. The property, owned by Zhengzhou Missun Real Estate Co., features 361 guestrooms and boasts the largest ballroom in Zhengzhou. Sheraton also launched Sheraton Xishuangbanna Hotel in the Prefecture of Xishuangbanna. With the opening of the 323-room property, Sheraton entered the Yunnan Province for the first time. And in Guilin, Lingui, Starwood Hotels joined China’s Fantasia Holdings Group on the presentation of Four Points by Sheraton Guilin, Lingui, adding 326 hotel rooms to the Guangxi Province market.

They’re not in Beijing, they’re not in Shanghai; these new hotels are located in emerging markets within a greater emerging market. As Frits van Paasschen, CEO of Starwood Hotels, noted during a quarterly earnings call in early 2014, “The pace of development in second- and third-tier cities continues; in the coming years, these cities will represent more than 200 metro markets, with more than 1 million people.”