Oct. 09–Castlewood Group, a Singaporean commercial property developer, will build 19 more hotels in Asia-Pacific by 2025 following the opening of its first hotel in Phuket next month.
The five-star Dream Phuket Hotel with 174 rooms will open on the northern part of Bang Tao beach on Nov 15.
Morten Junior, general manager for hotels and resorts at Castlewood Management, said the group was still confident in Phuket's tourism potential in the near future.
The environmentally friendly Dream Phuket Hotel will target the high-end market with key selling points of unique design and personal service.
The group conducted a two-year study before selecting Phuket as its first location to build a hotel in the region.
Phuket is among the most popular tourism destinations in the world, with 30% of tourists being repeat visitors to the resort island.
The Chinese market has been a key revenue-generating source for Phuket's tourism. The dramatic growth of Chinese tourist arrivals to Phuket is helping to offset the decrease in the Russian market, which has been badly affected by the economic crisis and declining rouble in Russia.
Gavin Brooking, principal of hotels and resorts for Castlewood Management, said the group saw great potential to increase the Indian tourist market in Phuket because of growing outbound tourism by middle-class Indians in the next two to five years.
According to the Phuket 2015 Hotel Market Update by C9 Hotelworks, passenger arrivals at Phuket airport increased by 11% year-on-year to 3.1 million in the first half of this year.
The top five source markets were mainland China, Russia, Australia, South Korea and Britain.
China was the leader with 37% growth to about 660,000 visitors, while the other four moved backwards with Russia falling by 41% to about 190,000.
C9 Hotelworks also reported that Phuket has 752 licensed lodging establishments with a total of 47,475 rooms.
Between the second half of this year and early 2018, about 4,400 hotel rooms are expected to enter the market including those at Dream Phuket Hotel.
C9 Hotelworks said the performance of all hotel tiers, notably budget and economy, was in a downward trend in the first half of 2015 compared with the same period last year.
The Dream Phuket Hotel is confident that it will generate profit within the first year of operation with an occupancy rate all year round of 60%.
The group has set its room rates from 15,000 baht per night, while other five-star hotels on Bang Tao beach charge 6,500 to 8,500 baht per night.
Mr Brooking said the key criteria for investment included accessibility and good infrastructure.
The group is looking for opportunities to develop a second project in a good location in the region.
