Centara Hotel and Resorts will soon be operating 134 hotels upon the completion of a five-year growth plan. One of Thailand’s biggest hotel chains presently runs 76 properties.

Covered under the planned 134 properties will be hotels and properties handled by Centara's management contracts.

Property Acquisition, Expansion and Renovation

This growth strategy was first implemented in 2018 and will be completed by 2022. Centara is currently in its second year of implementation. The company will allocate 20 billion baht to acquire more properties and renovate existing ones.

Centara Hotels and Resorts chief executive, Thirayuth Chirathivat, said that following completion, the hotel chain may reach revenue milestones of 20 billion baht a year. It earned approximately 9 billion last year.

Centara Grand Beach Resort Samui in Surat Thani and Centara Grand at Central World in Bangkok are two properties slated for renovation.

Around 700 million baht will be spent to partially refurbish outdated facilities at their Central World hotel in September 2019 onward. Hotel operations will carry on per usual regardless of renovations, according to Mr Thirayuth.

This month, with a budget of 1.2 billion baht, Centara Grand Beach Resort Samui will close to undergo comprehensive rebranding. Services will resume in 2020.

The 20 billion baht budget not only cover renovation but also the development of new properties.

Later this year, Centara will open a Cosi hotel in Pattaya as well as launch two new hotels in the Sri Racha district of Chon Buri and in the province of Krabi. Both hotels will be managed under an agreement.

Mr Thirayuth said the company is eyeing second-tier provinces as locations for further expansion.

Overseas Property Development

Centara’s overseas presence includes an agreement to manage a hotel in Qatar that launched February of this year. We can expect another local contract to be forged in 2020.

Two months ago, Centara partnered with six hotels in Nay Pyi Taw, Nyaung Shwe and Taungoo in Myanmar. The company seeks to expand business in the ASEAN region after successful starts in Laos and Vietnam.

Mr Thirayuth said: "We have placed our focus on operating hotels in the Middle East and Asia first" but a European expansion is also under consideration.

As part of the SET-listed Central Plaza Hotels, Centara Hotels and Resorts mainly operates hotels and restaurants.

This year, the company celebrates its 36th anniversary with solid promotional campaigns. It hopes to lure more local and foreign visitors.

Optimistic Outlook

The global economic slowdown and the significant drop in Chinese tourists have not exactly worked well for the hospitality industry. Centara’s hotel occupancy rate declined to 83 per cent in the first quarter of 2019 from 85 per cent in 2018.

But Mr Thirayuth remained optimistic that the economic situation would be better in the second half of 2019. Revenue would reach target growth rates of 5 to 7 per cent, exceeding last year’s 9 billion baht revenue.

Photo credits: Sumario c/o Pixabay.