Accor's luxury brand has just announced that two new properties are slated to open by 2022 in South Asia, in Bali and Singapore.
After opening in India, Raffles is pushing further south in Asia, and returning to Singapore (where the brand originated, historically) and is opening for the first time in Indonesia. That makes a total of four hotels in the pipeline in Asia, in addition to other geographic regions, such as America (Raffles Boston Back Bay Hotel & Residences, 2021), the Middle East (Raffles PALM360 Resort Hotel & Residences in Dubai, 2021) and Europe (Raffles London, 2021-2022). Raffles Bali is slated to open in 2020, and Raffles Sentosa Resort & Spa Singapore is scheduled to open two years later in 2022.
The moderate growth rate of Raffles is tied to its very qualitative growth strategy as Michael Issenberg, Chairman and CEO Accor Asia Pacific:
The Raffles brand belongs to only the best projects and locations so it will always remain a curated collection, but we definitely see scope for careful and considerate growth. Importantly, the brand's expansion signals an evolution of Accor's network and supports our growth strategy to elevate our position in luxury hotels in key strategic locations worldwide.
This is why Jeannette Ho, VP Raffles Global Brand Strategy & Strategic Relationships at AccorHotels, explains that "even in China, where there are no historic buildings (suitable for hotels), we have never had to turn down so many requests as we have with Raffles".
Raffles Bali, an oasis of comfort in the middle of a luxuriant jungle
Leagues away from the urban model of the brand opened last May in a 72 story building in Shenzhen (China), Raffles Bali will have 32 private villas and will sprawl over 23 hectares of a tropical setting. Alongside this quite intimate very residential area, the hotel will also reveal a restaurant, a "Writers Bar" and a spa to discover local rituals and healing treatments.
Raffles Sentosa Resort & Spa Singapore, an urban resort
Designed as a villa hotel, the second property in in Singapore will be located in the center. It will be deployed in the midst of a vast 100,000 m² garden. The 61 individual villas will range in size from 260 to 450 m², depending on the number of bedrooms (up to four), and will each have its own swimming pool. There will also be a bar, restaurants, fitness centre, a celebrations room and two meeting rooms as well as Raffles Butlers and Raffles Spa.
The brand, which was incorporated into Accor in 2016, currently claims a total of 14 properties, including the new properties Raffles Shenzhen (168 rooms) opened in May 2019 and Raffles Europejski Warsaw (106 rooms) opened in June 2018.
