Two of Hong Kong’s biggest real estate developers with deep hospitality interests Online Cigarettes Store USA have each gone ahead and opened a hotel in the city despite pro-democracy protests that have been raging on for more than six months.
Sun Hung Kai Properties, which owns a slew of hotels such as the Ritz-Carlton, Four Seasons, W in Hong Kong, and others under its own brand Royal Hotels, opened Alva Hotel by Royal this week, offering a whopping 618 rooms in Shatin’s River Newport 100s Box East neighborhood. Alva signifies a new expansion of Sun Hung Kai Hotels, the hotels arm of the company, into modern design and technology hotels, its website says.
New World Development Company last week officially announced the opening of K11 Artus to the media following its soft launch in July. The ultra-luxury property offers 287 studio to three-bedroom serviced residences, many with views of Victoria Harbor, and is part of the group’s Victoria Dockside development that is overseen by its executive vice chairman and general manager, Adrian Cheng, brother of Rosewood Hotel Group CEO Sonia Cheng.
Both projects have been in the pipeline for some time. When asked at the media launch of Alva why Sun Hung Cheap Newport 100s cigarettes Kai Properties was going ahead with the opening, its executive director Adam Kwok was reported as saying, “We are in a difficult time, but we give our full heart to operate. With this hotel, we are offering good quality at a very affordable price. People will come.”