The China-based backers of a new Nanaimo hotel say that the 240-room tower will draw 70,000 Chinese tourists a year – equal to about 90% of the population of the Vancouver Island city.
“It is ambitious,” said Frank Bourree, principal of Victoria-based Chemistry Consulting Ltd., which tracks the Vancouver Island hotel sector. Bourree said the historical hotel occupancy rate in Nanaimo is in the range of 50%.
“There is not a demand for 240-room hotel in Nanaimo unless you bring your market with you,” Bourree said, in suggesting that is exactly what the developers are doing.
Bourree said the “exciting” project is an indication of the sea change in B.C.’s tourism market after Canada gained approved destination status from the Chinese government five years ago.
SSS Manhao International Tourism Group, a subsidiary of Suzhou Youth Travel Services Co. Ltd., a major Chinese tourism and travel company, broke ground on the hotel project in mid-August.
The $50 million, 21-storey luxury development will have a restaurant on the top floor overlooking Nanaimo Harbour, according to the developer. The new hotel is located directly next to the Vancouver Island Conference Centre. An overhead pedestrian walkway will connect it to the conference centre.
The hotel is being built on a city-owned site that had been on the market for years before Suzhou approached the city in 2012.
Suzhou Youth Travel Services will fill its hotel with guests who otherwise would not visit Nanaimo, said Nanaimo Economic Development Corp. CEO Sasha Angus.
Suzhou puts approximately 14.6 million customers each year on planes across the world, Angus said, adding the hotel “will provide a significant stimulus for the local economy.”
In a presentation to Nanaimo city council last year, a SS Manhou representative said they would sell off individual hotel suites to help offset capital costs.
The hotel is being built by Urban One Builders, which has offices in Vancouver and Alberta and is also the construction manager responsible for construction of the 63-storey Trump International Hotel and Tower in downtown Vancouver.
