Marriott comes to Darling Harbour.

Marriott International plans to open a luxury W Hotel in Sydney within two years.

It will be located in Darling Harbour and will be part of Grocon’s $700 million Ribbon development.

That means it will be competing with the Sofitel near the International Convention Centre.

Marriott’s announcement last week means that W Hotel brand will be returning to Sydney after a 10-year absence. The last W Hotel operated in Sydney was located at the Woolloomooloo Finger Wharf.

The 593-room purpose-built property on the prime Darling Harbour site will be added to the W Hotel, Brisbane, the first five-star hotel the opening in the Queensland capital in decades. The Brisbane opening was on 1 June.

And in addition to that, there’s a W hotel under construction in Melbourne.

Marriott’s chief operations ­officer for the Asia-Pacific, Rajeev Menon, says the Marriott has deals that will see it manage two-thirds of the luxury hotels in Australia’s development pipeline.

These will be under various Marriott brands including the Ritz Carlton.

“Globally we are seeing tremendous growth in the W Hotel brand,” Menon told realcommercial.com.au

“It will be a perfect match to have three W Hotels open across Australia.”

Marriott has a long-term management agreement in place to run Sydney’s W Hotel. It is funded by Chinese developer Greaton.

The key target for Marriott is the luxury market.

Menon says the company’s luxury hotels in Australia enjoy occupancies of more than 90%.

“We are always open to growth but we genuinely believe connecting the three main east coast cities with a W was critical,” he told realcommercial.com.au.

At this stage, Marriott operates 18 hotels in Australia.

But it has plans to expand and is looking to have 20 by years end following the opening of the Westin in Brisbane and Four Points by Sheraton in Sydney.

And it has another 17 hotels in the pipeline.

Leon Getler 15th June 2018.