Formosa International Hotels Corp (晶華國際酒店集團), the nation’s biggest listed hotel operator, yesterday signed a deal with Hong Kong’s Tomson Group (湯臣集團) to offer personal butler services to a top-end service apartment in Shanghai, marking its official entry into China’s luxury property management business.
Formosa Hotels currently manages Jasper Villa Xinyi (新光信義傑仕堡), a high-end apartment in Taipei that targets business executives, and is expected to clinch a second project with another top-class residential complex, The Palace (帝寶), early next year.
“We will only offer personal butler services to one or two landmark properties in each city, be it in Taiwan or in China,” Formosa Hotels chairman Steven Pan (潘思亮) told reporters after the signing ceremony.
The hotel group set up a subsidiary in Shanghai to serve top-end clients residing at Tomson Riviera (湯臣一品), one of the most expensive luxury apartments in China.
Tomson Riviera sold a unit of 180 ping (594m²) early this month for 96 million yuan (US$14 million), which translates to about NT$2.5 million (US$77,500) per ping.
Under the pact, Formosa Hotels would send experts to train personnel in Shanghai to offer personal butler services to Tomson Riviera’s residents, with the services ranging from food catering to business trip arrangements to language interpretation.
The deal with Tomson marks a further step for Formosa Hotels’ expansion across the Strait.
“Chairman Pan has been surveying the market in Beijing,” said Ellen Chang (張筠), Formosa Hotels’ public relations director.
With hotels in oversupply in Beijing after the Olympics Games, Formosa Hotels said it had no intention of buying lands or purchasing hotels but would rather use its experience in managing hotels, luxury apartments and luxury goods to work with real estate developers there, Chang said.
Its subsidiary, Grand Formosa Regent Taipei (晶華酒店), would manage its own luxury shops at the Regent Galleria (麗晶精品), when the operator’s lease ends in July.
A mall located at the hotel’s basement, Regent Galleria, brings in revenues of more than NT$2 billion a year.
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