Economy

'Hotels to benefit from tourism boom'

By Andrew Moody (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-07-05 10:09

Brett Butcher, the 50-year-old Australian managing director of Langham Hotels International, said the wave of Chinese people flocking to the south resembles the way northern Europeans have been taking their holidays in Spain and the Canary Islands over the past 30 years.

More people fleeing to the south for holidays on sun-drenched beaches

MACAO - Brett Butcher believes Chinese tourists escaping to the sun will revolutionize the leisure industry in Asia.

The 50-year-old Australian managing director of Langham Hotels International said ever wealthier people from the colder north of China will increasingly want to take their holidays in warmer climates.

He believes this will prove a boon to hotels on Hainan, the tropical island off China's southern coast, and to various other destinations in Southeast Asia.

"It is the next big growth story in China which has yet to happen. People are going to start to ask themselves in the winter: 'Why are we living in Beijing?'," he said.

Butcher predicts the wave of people fleeing to the south will be just as big a phenomenon as people in northern Europe taking their holidays in Spain and the Canary Islands over the past 30 years. He also believes the pattern will be similar to Americans wintering in Florida.

"We haven't scratched the surface of this yet. Sanya (on Hainan island) is already growing rapidly and there are a number of resorts there already," he said.

"If you go to Sanya beaches, they are better than Hawaii, pure white sand and crystal clear water.

"It is going to be phenomenal when it develops in a big way and change the whole way southern China works."

Langham, which is wholly owned by Hong Kong-listed Great Eagle Holdings in which the Lo real estate dynasty has a major stake, is planning to open a hotel in Sanya and believes its three luxury hotels in Hong Kong, which also benefits from a warmer climate, will receive a boost from this trend.

"It is going to affect Hong Kong and also Macao and we are going to have resort cities we have never even heard of today," he said.

Langham opened its first hotel on Regent Street in London in 1865, described as Europe's first ever Grand Hotel which also pioneered the use of hot and cold running water.

It currently has 11 properties and is to open a further 24 in the next three years.

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In the Chinese mainland, it already has The Langham Yangtze Boutique Hotel and the Eaton Luxe, Nanqiao in Shanghai and plans to open four more in the mainland, including a Langham Place at Beijing Capital Airport Terminal 3, which is scheduled to be ready by August.

Butcher said the China hotels market is proving to be remarkably resilient after a very difficult year last year following the economic crisis.

"There has been a dramatic recovery this year. The China hotels market is an amazing story. If you track back to the Asian financial crisis and then the SARS outbreak, after every setback it has always managed to return to its previous trend line of almost exponential growth. It has the ability to just juggernaut its way through. It should be back on track again by 2011," he said.

"If you look at the United States now, it is going to take five, six or seven years to right itself following the financial crisis and get back to the trend line it was on before."