Langham to invest in Asia expansion

Langham is planning to expand its Asia Pacific portfolio with new property investments across the region.

Speaking to Travel Daily recently, Katie Benson, the new CEO of Langham Hospitality Investments Limited (the Trust) revealed that the company is looking at several investment opportunities in the region, and hopes to make its first acquisition soon.

“We’re looking at a couple of things in Asia and the Pacific,” Ms Benson said in a telephone interview from Hong Kong. “My main priority for the first year is to make sure we achieve our forecasts for our unit holders. Then we are ideally looking to grow the size of the Trust by acquiring more hotels. I would be disappointed if we didn’t make any investments in the next two to three years.”

While no investments can currently be confirmed, Ms Benson revealed that the Trust has the right of first refusal for Asia-based hotels being sold by Great Eagle Group, which owns Langham Hospitality Group. This means that if Great Eagle is looking to sell one of its hotels under the Langham brand in Asia, Langham Hospitality Investments will have the right of acquiring it. And according to Ms Benson, the combination of real estate investment and hotel management expertise gives Langham Hospitality Investments a major advantage.

“We are lucky to have resources from Langham Hospitality Group and Great Eagle,” she said. “This allows us to analyse any new acquisitions without using outside consultancy firms, and also gives the focus of an owner-operator. The cost structure of the Trust is designed to be efficient to give maximum distributions to unit holders, and this helps us achieve this.”

Any new investments are unlikely to be in Langham’s home market of Hong Kong, however. A shortage of land in the city is limiting the amount of new hotel room supply expected to enter the market in the coming years. But Ms Benson – who previously managed The Langham Hong Kong – said this supply-demand imbalance would provide opportunities for hoteliers.

“Hong Kong is currently experiencing very high occupancy, and hoteliers need to be brave enough to put up their rates,” she said. “The good thing about Hong Kong is that it has a good selection of hotels and products in the upper sector, and a good variety of hotels.”

“Langham has a good distribution of business. The US used to be our main market, and is now recovering after a dip. We believe that Langham’s new hotels in Chicago and New York will increase this demand further. Also we are looking to attract more Chinese groups and individual travellers,” she said.