Under a memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed by NISB – which now owns the four-star LaCrista Hotel Melaka – and Swiss-Belhotel International Ltd (SBI), a joint-venture hotel management company will be set up for the purpose.
The two partners will have equal stakes in the new company, called Swiss Belhotel Malaysia (SBM), that will manage up to 2,000 hotel rooms in the country before 2025.
However, the two companies did not disclose any financial information, such as the size of their investment in the new venture.
SBM will take over the management of LaCrista Hotel Melaka in February. NISB acquired the hotel, which remains the only asset in its portfolio, on July 10, 2019.
Swiss-Belhotel chairman and president Gavin Faull said that under the deal with NISB, the joint-venture company would embark on an “aggressive acquisition” of existing hotels to manage.
“We are wholly optimistic about seeing a strong economic rebound in the country,” he told the media after the signing of the MoU today.
To improve the competitiveness of its services, SBM will count on SBI’s expertise to train and develop its Malaysian employees.
“This is a most positive development when you come out of two years of stagnation, as a result of Covid-19,” Faull said.
However, challenges remain. Rosthman Ibrahim, managing director of NISB, said the shortage of manpower was severely affecting the industry.
“We need to train many Malaysians to be resilient and to be (well-positioned to serve) in the hospitality-centred business. Nautical Insight believes that Swiss-Belhotel International will be able to provide us with such expertise,” he said.
Acutely aware of the competition from other short-term accommodations such as Airbnb, SBI chose to partner rather than compete by listing their hotels on their platform to reach more customers.
A similar approach may be applied to future hotels managed by SBM to mitigate competition from Airbnb in Malaysia.
SBI manages more than 125 hotels in 19 countries across Asia, and hopes to leverage the localised knowledge of NISB to better penetrate the Malaysian market.
“I have huge confidence in the economy of Malaysia, and I see the country as one of the tigers in Asia,” Faull added.