Dutch architects behind a China hotel that would look like a giant sliced block of amethyst have eyes on Dubai for its own gem of a hotel.
Amsterdam-based NL Architects is designing a luxury hotel on the Ocean Flower project, an artificial island under development in the sea north of Hainan Province in southwestern China. The developer, Guangzhou-based Evergrande Group, is looking for an investor for the project who would also run the hotel operations.
“We imagine that Dubai would be the perfect habitat for a gem like the Amethyst Hotel,” said Kamiel Klaasse, one of the architects from NL Architects in the team.
“We very much hope that we will be able to attract a hotelier that would like to eventually build a chain of these, all slightly different, all special on different locations.”
Rooms at the Amethyst Hotel would be placed around a large void that rises several stories, and access to the rooms will be along the outer perimeter of the hotel, according to the architects.
Crystalline shards would frame the windows, giving the hotel a look of the gemstone.
Mainland China is home to some of the luxurious and unconventional properties.
Among them are the horse-shoe shaped Sheraton Huzhou Hot Spring Resort in Huzhou, near Shanghai, that opened in 2013. The Sunrise Kempinski Hotel outside Beijing, which is opening this month, looks like a rugby ball.
But hotel performance in China is expected to remain flat, according to a report from consultants JLL this month.
The average room rate was expected to rise by 2.4 per cent to RMB409 (Dh239) last year while occupancy rate and revenue per available room were expected to remain flat at around 60 per cent RMB241.
The Chinese government’s measures in 2013 to curb conspicuous consumption had a negative impact on luxury hotels’ food and beverage revenue in particular, the report said.
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