Carolyn Choo, chief executive and managing director of Worldwide Hotels, has set her sights on growing the group’s footprint in Singapore and Asia Pacific region. (Picture: Albert Chua/The Edge Singapore)
At the helm of Worldwide Hotels, one of Singapore’s largest homegrown hospitality groups, is Carolyn Choo, chief executive and managing director.
Her father Choo Chong Ngen founded the company in 1993 when he launched the budget hotel chain that made him famous, Hotel 81. According to Forbes, the 71-year-old hotelier is Singapore’s 17th richest, with a net worth of US$3.1 billion ($4.2 billion).
Under Carolyn’s watch, the hotel group has continued to dominate Singapore’s mid-tier and budget hospitality segment, with 41 hotel properties and over 8,600 rooms in its portfolio. Including its overseas hotels, the group’s portfolio encompasses 52 hotels with an aggregate of 11,200 rooms.
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Carolyn has set her sights on growing the group’s footprint in Singapore and regionally. The launch of Worldwide Hotels’ flagship property last month, the 989-room Mercure Icon Singapore City Centre, foreshadows the ambitions of the homegrown hotel group under this second-generation entrepreneur.
Located at 8 Club Street, the property is considered the largest Mercure hotel in the world. However, in Worldwide Hotels’ portfolio, it is the second largest after the 1,500-room Hotel Boss.
“Our goal with Mercure Icon Singapore City Centre is to showcase our ability to push the envelope on luxury to a very affordable price point,” says Carolyn.
Mercure Icon Singapore City Centre was developed on the “lean luxury” concept — offering affordable luxury and efficient spaces with an appealing contemporary design.
The new Mercure Icon has a prominent frontage along Cross Street and Club Street. (Picture: Albert Chua/The Edge Singapore)
“When it comes to luxury, there is a wide spectrum,” adds Carolyn. “Everyone deserves some luxury at every price point. At Mercure Icon Singapore City Centre, we cater to sophisticated travellers, providing them with the luxury they value.”
The group’s partnership with Accor is a franchise agreement under the Mercure brand. As the first “co-branded hotel”, Worldwide Hotels has also planted its Icon brand on the property.
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The new Mercure Icon Singapore City Centre opened in April and is now the group’s flagship hotel. The 1500-room Hotel Boss was Worldwide Hotels Group’s flagship Hotel. It is the largest property by room keys in the Group’s portfolio of 41 hotels in Singapore.
Likewise, the new Mercure Icon has a prominent frontage along Cross Street and Club Street. While located in Chinatown, it is right next to the CBD. It is built on the site of a former open-air public carpark. Worldwide Hotels won the site in 2019 under the government land sales (GLS) programme.
A Classic double room at Mercure ICON Singapore City Centre. (Picture: Albert Chua/The Edge Singapore)
Its winning bid of $562.2 million ($2,148 psf per plot ratio) was at the top of eight bids at the close of the tender in January 2019. The hotel site was hotly contested as it was the first GLS site for a hotel development in a decade.
“When this site was launched for sale, we had already envisioned it as a landmark property within our local portfolio,” says Choo. “We put in the highest price that we thought we could afford based on our projected return on investment”. Today, the hotel is valued at over $1 billion.
The tender conditions for the hotel included building underground pedestrian links from the hotel to the Telok Ayer MRT Station, the Chinatown MRT Station (both on the Downtown Line) and Cross Street Exchange office blocks across the road.
It is this connectivity that makes the hotel appealing to a mix of business and leisure travellers, notes Carolyn.
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The 989-room Mercure ICON Singapore City Centre was launched in April. (Picture: Albert Chua/The Edge Singapore)
Anchoring the hotel is its variety of F&B offerings, such as L’antica Pizzeria da Michele, La Table d’Emma, Upward Taproom, TAG Espresso, and Ashino Restaurant along the street front. Kiara Café & Bar is in the lobby, and Chara Brasserie is on the second level.
Carolyn sees the Mercure Icon City Centre as well-positioned to capitalise on the growing business-leisure travel — an emerging travel behaviour that blends business and leisure. She sees more corporate travellers extending their stay in a city for leisure. “There is still pent-up post-Covid demand for travel that will sustain demand in the mid-tier hospitality segment.”
Traditionally, the company’s hotels in Singapore are managed under one of its homegrown brands, such as Hotel 81, Value Hotel, Hotel Mi, Hotel Boss, and V Hotel.
Worldwide Hotels Group owns and manages Mercure ICON Singapore City Centre and Novotel Singapore on Kitchener. Both hotels are under a franchise partnership with Accor. For Worldwide Hotels, it was an opportunity to “enhance our partnership with Accor and capitalise on the international hotel group’s extensive membership base of over 27 million”, says Carolyn.
The maiden tie-up with Accor in Singapore was the 543-room Novotel Singapore on Kitchener, which opened in November 2023. Worldwide Hotels purchased the property, formerly Parkroyal on Kitchener, for $525 million in July 2023. It was considered Singapore’s largest single hotel acquisition last year and the second largest in the Asia Pacific region. UOL Group’s hospitality arm, Pan Pacific Hotels Group, formerly owned the hotel.
The former Parkroyal on Kitchener was acquired and rebranded as Novotel Singapore on Kitchener. (Picture: Albert Chua/The Edge Singapore)
However, Worldwide Hotels already had an existing relationship with Accor, which manages some of its overseas hospitality properties. For example, Accor manages three hotels in Australia owned by Worldwide Hotels — Novotel Melbourne Central, Ibis Melbourne Central, and Ibis Styles Brisbane Elizabeth Street. In Japan, it manages Ibis Budget Osaka Umeda.
Other overseas hotels in Worldwide Hotels’ portfolio include Oakwood Studios Sukhumvit Bangkok, Travelodge Dongdaemun Seoul, Swiss Garden Hotel Bukit Bintang Kuala Lumpur, and Travelodge Pattaya.
According to Carolyn, having an internationally recognised hotel brand manager helps drive cost efficiencies across the company and enhances the staff’s skill specialisation.
Another significant newly built hotel was the 530-room Hotel Mi Rochor, which opened last November. It is a redevelopment of the former Golden Wall Centre on Short Street, which the group purchased en bloc for $276.2 million ($2,331 psf ppr) in November 2018. The freehold property is next to Rochor MRT Station on the Downtown Line, near Sim Lim Square and the Little India Conservation Area.
Hotel Mi Rochor is a redevelopment of the former Golden Wall Centre, which was acquired en bloc in 2018. (Picture: Albert Chua/ The Edge Singapore)
Besides acquiring new hotels, the group has been refurbishing its existing properties in Singapore. The group makes it a point to upgrade or refurbish at least one property every year. And this practice continued even during Covid. “We’ve refreshed several of our Hotel 81 brand hotels over the past few years, and a couple of others saw a total renovation,” says Carolyn.
The latest hotel to have completed a refresh is Hotel 81 Premier Princess at 21 Lorong 12 Geylang. About half of the Hotel 81 properties in Geylang have been renovated, and the company has plans to progressively rejuvenate its older hotel properties across the island.
Some of its hotels have also been rebranded. For instance, three Hotel 81 properties in Joo Chiat were rebranded into Venue about two decades ago. They are now known as Venue Hotel The Lily at 238 Joo Chiat Road, Venue Hotel at 305 Joo Chiat Road, and Hotel Classic by Venue at 12 Joo Chiat Road.
Outside Singapore, the group has 11 hotels in Australia, Malaysia, Japan, South Korea, and Thailand. The group intends to double the number to 20 over the next five years, with a focus on established cities such as Osaka and Tokyo in Japan and Melbourne in Australia.
Carolyn remains optimistic about the Singapore hospitality industry. The biggest group of inbound travellers to Singapore are from the neighbouring countries in Southeast Asia, according to Singapore Tourism Board data as at May 10. Those from China, India and Europe are the next largest groups of inbound travellers, respectively.
The hotel group’s mid-tier brands and wide range of hotel properties should cater to the needs of these travellers, reckons Carolyn.