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GEORGE TOWN: Heritage boutique hotel owners Hoo Kim Hotels Sdn Bhd is looking to offer travellers more boutique hotel options in George Town, with two projects on the drawing board.
The owners of the 20-room Yeng Keng Hotel have submitted plans to convert three shophouses on Lebuh Cintra into an eight-room boutique hotel, along with the conversion of eight shophouses on Lorong Hutton into a 32-room business boutique hotel.
"This is part of our plan to extend the Yeng Keng brand," Hoo Kim Hotels managing director Datuk Ong Gim Huat told Business Times.
Ong said the company has earmarked some RM2 million for the Lebuh Cintra project which it would like to begin as soon as approval is received, while a further RM12 million to RM15 million is likely to be ploughed into the proposed Lorong Hutton project.
The businessmen's hotel, which will sit on the fringes of George Town's Unesco World Heritage zone, is set to boast facilities like a swimming pool, gymnasium, a business centre and adequate parking for its corporate guests.
"Just like Yeng Keng Hotel, we are targeting upper middle-class guests from Australia, Europe and the US, and continue to use the Internet as our marketing tool as it has proven to be a very successful business model for us," said Ong.
From a backpacker's facility which used to charge its guests RM5 per bed per night, Yeng Keng morphed into a boutique hotel two years ago after its owners spent RM6 million renovating it and added, among others, a landscaped garden, swimming pool and many reading nooks.
Originally built as a private residence in the mid-1880s, Yeng Keng Hotel, which is sprawled on 0.2ha site in George Town's heritage enclave has been awarded "Travellers' Choice 2012" (Bargain/Best Service category) by the world's largest travel site Tripadvisor.
On investing in pre-war properties for commercial accommodation purposes in George Town, Ong said it is important that the controls and licences demanded are adhered to.
"The necessary approvals must be obtained for the premises to be licensed as a hotel and they must be mindful that with the Unesco World Heritage listing conferred on some parts of George Town, properties in the buffer and core zones cannot be redeveloped and they should make the best of what they have," he added.
-- Business Times
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