Greenland Hotels Assistant General Manager Lin Jiang presiding at an event last week
The hotel and tourism unit of Shanghai Greenland Group, one of China’s largest real estate developers, announced on March 6th that it has struck new partnerships with three Southeast Asian developers to accelerate the global expansion of its hotel management business.
Greenland said in a statement that its Greenland Hotel and Tourism Group has reached an agreement with Bangkok-based developer Siamese Asset to manage a portfolio of 10 of the company’s hotel and serviced apartment projects, starting with the Shanghai-based company taking over the management of three Siamese Asset projects in Bangkok.
That deal with Siamese asset was preceded earlier this month by Greenland signing a strategic partnership with a unit of Singapore-based real estate company Dennis Wee Group and Hong Kong-registered BNR Asia Holdings, to manage the hospitality element of a mixed-use project in Chiang Mai, Thailand.
The Thai-centred agreements come as Greenland expands its set of overseas hospitality management deals to 45 properties in six countries, including Malaysia, Laos and Vietnam, in addition to Thailand and China.
Bringing Mainland Brands to the Thai Hotel Market
To kick off the partnership with Siamese Asset, Greenland will be putting both hotel brands to use in the Thai capital, managing three of the developer’s projects in the global tourism hub as the Qube Residence Ratchada Bangkok, Q-Box Blossom Hotel Bangkok and the Primus Residence The Collection Bangkok.
A Primus-branded hotel in Shanghai’s Hongqiao area
Greenland, which was China’s sixth largest developer by sales in 2018, has been involved in the hotel industry since 2005, when it opened its first hotel asset, the Howard Johnson All Suites hotel in Shanghai. The developer formally launched its hotel management group in 2011.
The company introduced the Primus and Qube brands in 2012, and then in 2016 brought out the Q Hotel line, which was followed by the Q-Box label last year. Greenland Hotels has said that it plans to build a RMB 20 billion ($2.98 billion) hotel business within the next three years.
In January of this year Greenland officials had presided over the opening of a Primus hotel in the northern Vietnamese port city of Haiphong, expanding its hotel network into Vietnam’s third-largest city.
In the Singapore agreement, Greenland Hotels had secured the rights to manage the hospitality business of BNR International’s 110,000 square meter, The Fresh City development in Chiang Mai, Thailand, which has recently become a magnet for mainland visitors.
A Hotel By Any Other Name
In October 2018, Greenland Group, which is controlled by the Shanghai municipal government, renamed its Greenland International Hotels Group division as Greenland Hotel and Tourism Group, with the company presenting the name change as part of Greenland’s restructuring effort to “realize a high-quality development of the real estate industry in the next three years.”
With the majority of its projects in mainland China, the hotel and tourism group operates over 160 projects in total in 70 cities around the world. These projects, with a total asset value of RMB 80 billion, include projects managed under Greenland’s own hotel brands as well as projects owned by the company and managed by third parties. The company also plans to expand its hotel business into Europe, Africa and the Middle East.
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