Tuesday June 8, 2010

Tune Hotels.com is banking on Iskandar Malaysia and Singapore as the two main factors to attract guests to the company’s Danga Bay hotel here.

Chief executive officer Mark Lankaster said Tune Hotels wanted to position the property as the most preferred hotel among visitors and tourists to Johor Baru.

Modern: TuneHotels’ newest property in Johor Baru.

He said the opening of the hotel was timely with the opening of Singapore’s two Integrated Resorts (IR) – Resorts World Sentosa (RWS) and Marina Bay Sands (MBS) this year.

“Malaysians from outside Johor planning to visit the Integrated Resorts can stay at our hotel as our rate is cheaper than hotels in Singapore,” said Lankaster.

He said this at the soft opening of the 218-room Danga Bay Tune Hotel costing RM35mil located at Danga Bay waterfront development area.

He said visiting the two IR would not be a problem as the hotel had eight shuttle services daily to transport its guests to and from Singapore at RM18 return trip.

He added that all rooms at its Danga Bay hotel were fitted with 32-inch LCD television, the first hotel in its stable to do so and would be followed by the company’s other hotels in stages.

Lankaster said the company was not competing with existing hotels in Johor Baru but was giving customers a choice with the pay-as-you-use concept.

He said that apart from targeting Malaysians from other states, the hotel was also looking at drawing Singaporeans and foreign tourists due to the low room rates.

He added that upcoming tourist attractions in Iskandar within the next two years such as Legoland Theme Park, Indoor Theme and Malaysia Premium Outlet would also boost the tourism sector in Johor.

Tune Hotels launched its first hotel in Kuala Lumpur in 2007. Its other hotels are in Kota Kinabalu, Kuching, KLIA-LCCT Airport, Penang, Petaling Jaya and Kuta and Legian in Bali, Indonesia while the one in Westminster, London, in UK, will open in August.

This article is a verbatim copy of the original article from The Star.