Crown Group to open hotel
Sydney-based residential developer Crown Group is diversifying its business: it’s getting into hotels.
The group is planning to open its first hotel, known as the Skye Hotel Suites, in Parramatta in early 2017.
The Skye will be part of the 29-storey, V by Crown Group development, known as Parramatta's vertical village.
The aim is to provide a range of suites complementing apartment towers in the area.
Wayne Taranto, who formerly held senior management roles with Amalgamated Holdings, now Event Hospitality & Entertainment, and Accor Hotels, said developers pairing hotels with residential projects was a “natural progression.”
"We see there is strength in the hotel sector, particularly in Sydney, which has an undersupply of high-end luxury serviced apartments and suites,” Taranto, a former the general manager of Sofitel Sydney Wentworth, told the Sydney Morning Herald.
"The aim is to offer traditional hotel services with apartment-style accommodation that will cater for business and leisure travellers."
Taranto said Crown was looking at Parramatta, Green Square and Kent Street, in the CBD as Sydney’s growth locations.
And he said there were plans to expand interstate and overseas.
"We will focus on the east coast of Australia and once established in Sydney, will look at Melbourne, then Queensland, Perth when the market improves, and then Indonesia, where Crown was born," he said.
Crown Group chief executive Iwan Sunito expanding into luxury hotels was a normal progression for the company.
"Asia is booming, and with it more and more people travel to Australia for holidays and for business. This has created a gap in the market as the demand increases for luxury hotel-style serviced apartments in Sydney and Australia,’’ Mr Sunito told the Sydney Morning Herald.
"Expanding into the transient short-term accommodation market will provide a strong foundation for our continued expansion ,both locally and across the region."
by Leon Gettler, 16th August 2016
