KUALA LUMPUR: Sandakan’s first boutique hotel, the RM40-million @ease waterfront hotel — located within the RM450 million Sandakan Harbour Square — will be opened on Dec 23.
The hotel, which overlooks the Sandakan Harbour, has 138 deluxe rooms and suites, business centre and banquet facilities and it is targeting corporate clients, businessmen and tourists.
It would be the first hotel within the Sandakan Harbour Square and fourth hotel under the three-star category in Sandakan. The project was undertaken by Sara Timur Sdn Bhd’s subsidiary Sara Timur Properties Sdn Bhd.
Sara Timur — a Sarawak-based engineering and construction company — was the main contractor for the first two of four phases of the 12-acre Sandakan Harbour Square. The hotel will be managed by the Value Hospitality group.
Sara-Timur Properties joint managing director Rosita Hamden said yesterday there was good potential for tourism in Sabah.
“Sandakan has many attractions to offer including the Sepilok Orang Utan Rehabilitation Centre, the Kinabatangan river and eco-tourism,” she said at a press briefing here yesterday.
She said first daily flights from Kota Kinabalu to Sandakan are usually packed with tourists and businessmen, adding there was a shortage of 6,000 hotel rooms in Kota Kinabalu.
“We are expecting 60% occupancy for the first year which is according to the standard average industry occupancy,” said Value Hospitality’s area general manager John Augustin.
Sara-Timur Sdn Bhd’s regional director (Sabah region) Anthony Tiong said the company was looking for more opportunities and would first focus within Malaysia. Sandakan Harbour Square is Sabah’s first integrated urban renewal development project that was launched in January 2003 and targeted to complete in 2010.
By The EDGE MALAYSIA (by Rosalynn Poh)
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