Kimpton boutique hotels to launch in Australia

The British-based hotelier, the manager of 31 hotels in Australia under brands including InterContinental, Holiday Inn and Holiday Inn Express, has 23 more properties in the pipeline and is bidding for the rights to manage a further 12 luxury hotels across Australia and New Zealand.

Forward bookings for its flagship Hayman Island property, which reopens on July 1 after a $100 million renovation are solid.

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The InterContinental Hayman Island, owned by Malaysian conglomerate Mulpha, has attracted bookings from several large incentive groups in the professional services and communications industries who plan to take over the whole island, including its 166 suites as well as several villas which are for sale.

“We have a huge amount of forward bookings already sitting there for Hayman Island,” says Leanne Harwood, managing director of IHG Australasia, Japan and the South Pacific.

“We are well and truly on track to surpass the budget.”

Domestic travellers are also among the heavy bookers of Hayman Island, which was closed in the wake of Cyclone Debbie’s damage in 2017.

Harwood, who has more than 4000 staff across Australia, says there are also bookings from American and Southeast Asian travellers from July.

Apart from Mulpha which owns Hayman, the InterContinental in Sydney’s Bridge Street and also the Sanctuary Cove resort on the Gold Coast, Ms Harwood said IHG enjoys the patronage of a number of large institutional owners but was increasingly signing cashed-up private individuals who are keen to get into hotel ownership.

Harwood says hotel management has changed significantly over the past few years, with more cashed-up individual owners than institutions.

Inter-Continental Hotel Group Australia managing director Leanne Harwood. Picture: John Feder

“We are always looking for opportunities to manage hotels,” she says.

IHG’s other key institutional hotel owners include the Salter Brothers and Michael Gu’s SB&G Hotel Group, which has five IHG branded hotel assets including a Crowne Plaza, an InterContinental and a Holiday Inn. Another important partner for IHG is the Australian-based Proinvest, which will grow Holiday Inn Express brands across Australia and New Zealand. IHG is about to open a Holiday Inn Express in Newcastle on behalf of Proinvest.

“We are focusing on regional hubs, developing Holiday Inns in Victoria’s regional areas such as Werribee and Geelong and on the edge of the Yarra Valley we have a Voco, a new upscale lifestyle brand,” she tells The Australian.

While the bulk of IHG’s new Australian operations are in Victoria, she was not concerned the state could be in for a hospitality oversupply given 32 new hotels are being built in Melbourne, adding 6500 rooms to the market this year and next.

“Victoria has done a fantastic job of driving tourism,” she says.

IHG will today announce the development of a flagship Holiday Inn in major NSW regional city, Wagga Wagga, by 2021 following the signing of a management agreement with Interlink Group.

The 148-room Holiday Inn & Suites will be the largest hotel in the regional city and will include the reuse of the heritage-listed Murrumbidgee Flour Mill and Grainstore.

Located midway between Sydney and Melbourne, Wagga Wagga is known as an agricultural, military and transport hub.

Harwood says the overall profitability is higher among the lower-starred Holiday Inn Express hotels than the InterContinental Hotels, even though the luxury properties enjoy a higher average daily return.

This article originally appeared on www.theaustralian.com.au/property.