SINGAPORE (June 17): CapitaLand’s wholly-owned lodging business unit The Ascott Limited announced that it has secured contracts for 25 new properties with over 5,400 units across 19 cities around the world on Wednesday.
This is the largest number of new properties Ascott has secured within the first five months of any year. The contracts have brought a 139% y-o-y increase in the number of units compared to the same period in 2019.
The 25 new properties, which are secured under management contracts, franchise contracts and a lease, expands Ascott’s geographical reach into four major new cities in China, Indonesia, and Morocco.
Through the new contracts, Ascott will also further strengthen its presence in key cities such as Shanghai, Surabaya, Batam, and Manila.
Ascott has also signed its first rental housing property in Shanghai, China. The segment taps on the growing demand from young, mobile workers as well as returning students from abroad who are looking to rent quality fully furnished homes in the tier one and tier two cities on a long-term basis in China.
In 2Q20, a quarter of Ascott’s properties in China have achieved occupancy rates of over 70%.
The properties will open in phases between 2020 and 2024.
In 2020 alone, Ascott opened six new properties in Singapore, China’s Changsha and Tianjin, Australia’s Gold Coast, Japan’s Osaka, and Tours in France.
“Ascott’s record signing of 25 new properties globally despite the challenges of COVID-19 demonstrates that our partners recognise the resilience of our lodging products and the value Ascott brings as one of the leading international lodging owner-operators,” says Kevin Goh, CapitaLand’s CEO for Lodging and Ascott’s CEO.
“We have a strong base of long-stay guests who appreciate the comfort of our spacious apartments where they can live and work. This has enabled our serviced residences globally to maintain robust average occupancy rates. We have already taken steps to ready Ascott to be the accommodation of choice in a post COVID-19 landscape and will continue to cement Ascott’s position as a dominant lodging player and deliver more value for our guests and business partners,” he adds.
“Ascott remains confident in China’s long-term growth and will continue to seek good investment and partnership opportunities to expand our footprint. Since May 2020, Ascott has fully resumed operations of our properties in mainland China and we are seeing encouraging signs of recovery driven by the country’s strong domestic demand,” says Tan Tze Shang, Ascott’s managing director and head of business development for China.
“With the implementation of green lanes between China and other countries such as Singapore and Korea, we expect demand for our properties to pick up pace as international travel gradually resumes,” he adds.
Shares in CapitaLand closed 7 cents higher, or 2.4% up, at $3.03 on Tuesday, prior to the announcement.
