Westin brand returns to Singapore

Following a nearly ten-year absence, the Westin brand will stage a comeback in Singapore when a 280-room hotel opens on the top floors of Asia Square Tower 2 by 2013.

According to industry sources, Starwood Hotels & Resorts has secured the management contract to run the hotel under the Westin brand.
 
Located on the 32nd to 46th floors, the hotel will have some retail space on the first two floors and carpark lots on the third to fifth floors.

Westin Hotels & Resorts, a unit of Starwood, once managed the two hotels located in the Raffles City complex along Bras Basah Road from its opening in 1986 until the expiration of its management contract in end-2001.

Raffles International, which was then the hotel management arm of Raffles Holdings, ran the two hotels from January 2002.

Known today as Fairmont Singapore and Swissotel The Stamford, the hotels are managed by Fairmont Raffles Hotels, after Raffles Holdings sold its hotel business to Colony Capital in 2005. Colony Capital later merged the portfolio with the assets of Fairmont Hotels & Resorts.

However, Starwood still has a presence in the Singapore market via a management contract for the St. Regis Singapore, which opened in 2008. Starwood is also set to manage a hotel under the W brand, which is due to be ready in 2012.