The nation’s six-star hotel The Lalu (涵碧樓) will soon expand into more than 10 Chinese cities, including Qingdao, Guilin, Nanjing and Suzhou, the hotel’s chairman Lai Cheng-i (賴正鎰) said.
“In the next five years, our revenues from Chinese businesses will outperform those made from the local market,” Lai, who is also chairman of the Taichung-based real estate developer Shining Group (鄉林集團), told a media briefing on Saturday.
The company is expected to report earnings per share of between NT$1.4 and NT$1.5 for last year, he added.
LUXURY VILLAS
The planned construction of The Lalu in downtown Qingdao, where 200 villas will be built on a 45,000 ping (14.9 hectare) plot of land at a cost of NT$3 billion (US$93.5 million), will be launched next month and completed by 2012, Lai said.
Upon completion, the hotel will be the most upscale hotel in China and charge a record-high room rate of US$500 per night, compared with the average rate of US$150 in China, the chairman said.
Property rights for half of the hotel’s 200 villas will be put up for sale to maximize returns from the project, he added.
VAST PLOTS
Lai said the planned construction of another The Lalu in Guilin would follow by the end of this year, while the branches in Nanjing and Suzhou will be built on much larger plots of land spanning more than 80,000 ping.
The Lalu in Nanjing will likely form part of a luxury complex featuring both retail properties such as storefronts and upscale residential units with a swimming pool overhanging each floor, he said.
The hotel’s China-bound expansion will be the result of a personal investment by Lai, since the government prohibits local real-estate developers tapping into the Chinese market.
“But once the restriction is lifted, I will turn all my personal investments in China into subsidiaries under Shining,” Lai said.
In the local market, Lai remains positive that there will be a property boom over the next three years. He expects prices to rise by between 5 percent and 10 percent by year’s end.
RESIDENTIAL PROJECTS
Shining Group plans to release residential projects worth NT$30 billion in the upcoming year, 90 percent of which will be located in Taipei City and Taipei County, he said.
Lai said 90 percent of the company’s upscale luxury residential homes near the Shilin Residence in Shilin (士林), Taipei, where prices average more than NT$3 million per ping, have been sold out.
Buyers include tycoons from Singapore, Hong Kong and China, as well as Taiwanese, he said.
Riding on the back of the nation’s economic recovery, domestic construction companies are likely to begin pre-sales of properties with a total worth of NT$800 billion this year, an increase of 70 percent from last year’s NT$472.7 billion, Lai said.
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