Source : Straits Times - 27 Feb 2009
IT IS not the best of times, but the first of 10 new hotels to come up in Singapore this year threw open its doors in a grand official opening ceremony yesterday.
Hundreds of guests turned up for The Ibis on Bencoolen’s launch event, and were feted with champagne and local delicacies such as chilli crab, bak kut teh and char kway teow before a ceremony in which the hotel’s main signpost was turned on.
The 538-room, three-star hotel - and the other nine which will open here this year - were planned for in better times, when Singapore was setting tourism arrival records at breakneck pace, and fears were looming of a room crunch.
Those fears never materialised: Just 12 months ago, hotel occupancy was in the high 80 per cent to 90 per cent range. It has now dropped to the high 70s to 80s range.
But despite the tourism downturn and recession, the hotels are all confident of doing well, and say they have drawn up strategies to cope.
The Ibis on Bencoolen, for instance, has struck pay dirt since its ’soft opening’ on Feb 12, and has been almost full since.
The hotel said it is depending on its international brand name and cheap rooms to make it a winner. The chain’s parent company, Accor Hospitality, has 4,000 hotels in 90 countries around the world.
The economy-tier hotel on Bencoolen Street was offering its rooms at an opening rate of $148 which is valid till May.
In fact, Mr Gerard Guillouet, Accor’s vice-president for Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia, was upbeat enough yesterday to proclaim loudly: ‘If this hotel does not perform, no other hotel in Singapore will.’
He said Ibis will be able to tap on growing demand from corporate business travellers who are downgrading, as well as leisure travellers on a tight budget.
It is banking on a low introductory rate of $148 per night till May, as well as bundled deals like free Internet access in rooms, to attract guests.
So confident is the chain of doing well that it announced yesterday that it will develop another 241-room hotel on Balestier Road by 2011.
The heads of several other hotels opening this year are similarly optimistic, never mind the gloomy figures: Between nine million and 9.5 million visitors are expected in Singapore this year, a drop of between 6 per cent and 11 per cent over last year’s 10.1 million tourists.
Mr C. L. Ng, the managing director of home-grown firm Santa United, which will open a 74-room hotel in Bugis this year, said its plan to stimulate demand revolves around being flexible with room rates.
Even established hospitality chains are bullish.
As Ascott Hospitality’s chief executive officer Gerald Lee put it: ‘There is still business out there to be done. We just have to work harder and offer better value to get them.’
It was a point that was driven home by Senior Minister of State for Trade and Industry S. Iswaran.
Reminding the industry that it is going into the downturn from a position of strength, he said: ‘There continues to be demand for travel, it’s just a question of how to give travellers a good enough value proposition.’
Mr Iswaran, who spoke at the Ibis’ launch, also urged the sector to capitalise on Singapore’s strengths to ’seek out new opportunities and to build on our capabilities’, so that when the economic recovery comes, it can increase its market share.
There are currently some 39,000 hotel rooms here, according to the Singapore Tourism Board.
The new hotels will add over 4,000 rooms to the mix. This does not include new serviced apartments like Citadines at Mount Sophia.
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