New boutique hotel

Le Peranakan Hotel held its soft opening on Wednesday morning offering promotional rates of $80 to $100 a night till the end of the year. The published regular rates are from $160 to $250. –PHOTO: LE PERANAKAN HOTEL

A NEW 65-room boutique hotel has sprung up on East Coast Road in hopes of catching the economic recovery and tourism upturn when the two integrated resorts open next year.

Le Peranakan Hotel held its soft opening on Wednesday morning offering promotional rates of $80 to $100 a night till the end of the year. The published regular rates are from $160 to $250.

The Peranakan-themed boutique project is two companies’ foray into such business here. They are Haruta Investment, a real estate company specialising in management of conservation buildings, and hotel management company Radiance Hospitality Group

It is building owner Haruta Investment’s first hotel project.

Radiance Hospitality Group saw the recession as a good time to clinch a contract to run a hotel in Singapore. The Singapore-based company used to be headquartered in Malaysia but moved here with an eye for expansion into the region, said its group chief executive officer Leong Yew Poh.

They managed to catch the market at a good time, with the latest data from the Singapore Tourism Board showing visitor arrivals for September up 7.1 per cent over the same month last year. This was the first growth the tourism sector has seen since visitor numbers started plunging last June.