|
SHANGHAI - DEVELOPERS have put two Shanghai luxury hotel projects on hold as demand for five-star hotels plummets due to the global economic crisis, Chinese media said on Wednesday.
The Jumeirah Han Tang Xintiandi Hotel, managed by the Dubai-based hotel chain Jumeirah Group, and the Hilton-managed Conrad Shanghai have delayed their openings, the China Business News reported, citing unnamed sources.
Construction work on the hotels, both located in Xintiandi, a ritzy downtown entertainment and residential district developed by Hong Kong property tycoon Vincent Lo, has come to a halt, the report said.
Jumeirah's Shanghai spokeswoman Aslada Gu confirmed the opening of the chain's hotel, originally planned for early 2009, has now been postponed to later this year.
She declined to give a reason for the delay. Hilton and Xintiandi officials were not immediately available for comment.
The Conrad Shanghai had been due to open last year.
The current economic slowdown makes it a difficult time to launch luxury hotels in China, said Damien Little, a Beijing-based hospitality consultant for Horwath Asia Pacific.
'In the last quarter of the year, certainly, the financial crisis began to have an impact,' he said.
'By the end of the year, as the market begins to recover, probably is a better time for opening,' he said.
The average hotel occupancy ratio in Shanghai was 54.6 per cent between August and December last year, the lowest in two decades, according to Shanghai-based SAO HotelSolution Consulting Ltd. -- AFP
 |
Is this article useful to you?
|
|
|
|
|
|
| 
