Extended Stay Segment in China Offers Exciting Development Opportunities

Pan Pacific Hotels Group shared its views on China’s hospitality landscape at the 7th China Hotel Development and Financing Conference in Beijing last week.

The three day annual conference saw over 600 delegates in attendance to hear industry professionals and thought leaders’ views and insights on China’s economic and hotel market outlook.

Speaking on the ‘Hotel Leaders’ Panel’, Pan Pacific Hotels Group CEO A. Patrick Imbardelli observed that the extended stay segment in China presented huge opportunities for hospitality brands.

“We have been seeing opportunities and getting interest in this segment - especially to have a serviced suites and hotel product in the same development,” said Imbardelli. “Our own extended-stay product focuses on developments that offer both a standard hotel product plus a serviced suites component to gain maximum synergies. Our upcoming properties Pan Pacific Ningbo and Pan Pacific Ningbo Serviced Suites are an example of this.”

He added, “Customers who stay in the serviced suites can benefit from the services and expertise that they can enjoy with a hotel. And at the end of the day, there is more value [of such projects] to owners too; the numbers for them are just more favourable.”

The panel also discussed how China may be witnessing an oversupply of hotels in some markets, despite its buoyant economic outlook. But while Pan Pacific Hotels Group is primed for growth in China, it is looking to keep to scale.

“We see a lot of opportunities from cities that are becoming branded out and we have had to say ‘No’,” said Imbardelli. “We can grow by 30-50 properties in the short to medium-term, but we’re definitely not into adding, say, hundreds of hotels,” Imbardelli said, acknowledging that keeping to scale enabled hotel companies to maintain closer partnerships and more effective relationships with individual owners.

Pan Pacific Hotels Group currently operates Pan Pacific Suzhou and Pan Pacific Xiamen in China. In the pipeline are the 334-room Pan Pacific Tianjin, as well as the 430-room Pan Pacific Ningbo and the 200-room Pan Pacific Ningbo Serviced Suites – both part of a mixed-used development in Ningbo’s upcoming industrial and economic zone.

Under its ParkRoyal brand, projects in the pipeline include the 325-room ParkRoyal Serviced Suites Green City, Shanghai and the 200-room ParkRoyal Taihu Resort Suzhou.

Vice President, Development – Greater China

In line with its growth plans for China, the group has just recently appointed Kevin Sun as Vice President, Development – Greater China. In this new role, Kevin, currently based in Hong Kong, will pursue management and acquisition opportunities for the group in cities including Beijing, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Hong Kong.

A native of Hong Kong, Kevin brings on board over 20 years of experience in the hospitality industry. He has held various development and consulting roles in Asia Pacific for the past 10 years, having served as Director of Development for Marco Polo Hotels and Vice President at HVS Global Hospitality Services based in Hong Kong.

Most recently he was Managing Director of Prolink Hotel Development Ltd, his own start-up business which provided investors with a wide array of services including feasibility studies, project conceptualisation and management, advisory and consultation services as well as contract negotiation services.

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