Five-star hotel to ease room crisis
General Manager Bernard Teo inside a model of the proposed new hotel.
Perth’s newest five-star hotel is on track to open in October in what has been described as the most significant development in the city’s hotel industry in many years.
The 236-room Fraser Suites, on the site of the former MetroBus depot in Adelaide Terrace, should help the chronic shortage of Perth hotel rooms which has caused rates to soar to more than three times the national average.
Only 223 rooms have been added to the total Perth hotel market in the past six years, mostly through the expansion of existing facilities.
The situation has become so bad that Tourism Minister Kim Hames confirmed reports that some inner-city hotels were charging more than $1000 a night for a standard room.
At a special briefing provided to The Weekend West yesterday, Fraser Suites general manager Bernard Teo said the new 19-floor hotel would be pitched to the high-end travel market, offering gold-service standards to guests.
He said the rooms would be fully self-contained, with the kitchens having a microwave oven, dishwasher, cooking facilities and cutlery.
They would all have king-sized beds, iPod docking stations, high-speed WiFi and work desks.
Each floor will have CCTV surveillance and the hotel will have an indoor swimming pool, gymnasium, three meeting rooms and an alfresco restaurant.
“The quality of the service and the freshness of a new hotel will be our main point of difference and major selling point,” Mr Teo said.
The standard studio room rate will start at $245 a night.
A one-bedroom room will cost about $400 a night, while the deluxe two-bedroom premier suite will cost $1800 a night.
Fraser Suites is a subsidiary of the Singapore-registered company Fraser and Neave, owner of residential and tourism properties around the world. It also owns Asia Pacific Breweries, maker of Tiger Beer.
Dr Hames said yesterday that Fraser Suites represented the most significant development of new hotel capacity in Perth since 2006.
The room shortage has prompted the State Government to develop incentives to encourage hotel developments, including the release of the 7350sqm site at 480 Hay Street — the former Perth Chest Clinic and FESA House — for a hotel.
Source: The West Australian, 28 July 2012
