Starwood to manage Four Points hotel

The 300-room hotel is scheduled to open by Aug 31

KUCHING: Starwood Asia Pacific Hotels & Resorts Pte Ltd will manage the proposed RM100mil Four Points by Sheraton Hotel to be developed by Global Upline Sdn Bhd at Jalan Airport here.

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi had performed the earth-breaking ceremony for the hotel project yesterday.

The proposed 12-storey 300-room hotel, which is expected to be operational by Aug 31, is one of the three international standard hotels planned in Sarawak by construction company Global Upline.

The second 220-room hotel will be built at Jalan Tabuan here while the third hotel has been earmarked for Miri.

PM Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi and his wife Datin Seri Jeane Abdullah looking at the model of the Four Points Hotel Sheraton in Kuching on Tuesday while Global Upline Chairman Tan Sri Ting Phek Khiing ( 3rd left) and Chief Minister Tan Sri Abdul Taib Mahmud (centre) looks on

The proposed Four Points by Sheraton will form part of a complex which will also house an office tower.

The hotel and office tower blocks will share a common three-storey podium, which will provide shopping and dinning facilities.

Global Upline managing director Datuk Mohamad Daniel Abong and Starwood Asia director Thomas J. Monahan signed the hotel management agreement.

Daniel said the investments in the hotel industry marked Global Upline’s diversification into the hospitality service sector to cater for the expanding tourism industry.

“Our company has grown tremendously in the past eight years and has completed some RM1bil worth of infrastructure projects,” he said at the ceremony.

According to him. the airports and flyover projects that the company have undertaken are all delivered ahead of time, within budget and with high quality.

Asia Pacific Starwood Hotel & Resorts Worldwide Inc president Miguel Ko said the proposed Four Points by Sheraton Hotel would cater for both mid-scale business and leisure travellers.

He said Starwood’s portfolio of hotel company brands also included Sheraton, Westin, St Regis, W Hotels, The Luxury Collection, Le Meridien, Element and Aloft.

“The Four Point by Sheraton brand, with 136 properties in 16 countries, is consistently rated as a top performer in the mid-priced category by business travellers,” Ko said in his message in the souvenir magazine published to mark the proposed hotel ground breaking yesterday.

By The Star (By Jack Wong)