Kangde Group intends to buy three Spanish luxury hotels in the vacationland Baleares at a price of $120 million. The overseas strategies of Kangde are progressing pragmatically after over one year's preliminary investigation and many times of mutual inspections by the leaders of both sides, which presents a larger probability of the group's splendid development.
Picture: Lu Chaokang, the Chairman of Chongqing Kangde Industrial (Group) Co., Ltd., is delivering a speech at the Investment Conference in Hungary.
Joint hands with Europe once again by establishing the European Office
Chairman Lu Chaokang and his team made an 8-day tour to Europe to conduct another deep and professional investigation in the hotels in Hungary and Spain from October 26th to November 4th. Promoted by EU-China Industrial and Commercial Investment Promotion Agency (ECIPA), Chairman Lu and his team proceeded to ECIPA European Representative Office to learn the investment environment in Hungary, accompanied by Zhang Kun, the chief delegate of the ECIPA European Representative Office. The team also visited the Renaissance Hotel, Four Seasons Hotel, Sarilis Hotel and other famous star hotels at the center of Budapest pedestrian mall in Hungary. After the tour in Hungary, the team headed for Spain to carry out the comprehensive inspection of the hotels which are in the purchase list.
Picture: Chairman Lu Chaokang (first one on the left) and Robert Kassai (first one on the right), the special envoy of Hungary president, in front of the Hungarian Parliament.
Picture: The team of Kangde is visiting the Hungary Parliament
Three hotels are descended from an "eminent family"
The three hotels in Kangde’s purchase list all come from an "eminent family", being subordinate to a large-scale hotel group, i.e. Spanish Barcelo Hotel Management Group. The three hotels are Barcelo Hamilton Hotel, Barcelo Cabo de Gata, and Barcelo Santiago Coast Hotel, which are all luxury hotels rated above four stars.
Spanish Barcelo Hotel Management Group is among the world top hotel management group with 82 years’ history whose brand positioning is superior, competitive and sumptuous, and under it there are 140 hotels, of which 90% are four- or five-star hotels. In 2011, Barcelo Group ranked at 26th of the world's top 300 hotel groups rated by HOTELS. It would rank higher than Shangri-La Hotel & Resorts, Prince Hotel and Kempinski Hotel and so on in terms of the quantity of hotel rooms.
It is said that the process of purchase actually started last year. On July 18, 2012, the executive director of Kangde Hong Kong had a visit to Spain and held further discussion on Kangde's merger program. The memorandum was signed on July 20, which meant a substantive step of Kangde's purchasing process. "As this signing represents 95% of the cooperation degree between both sides, only discussions on the price and other details remain to be conducted" claimed the spokesman of Chongqing Kangde. On September 24, Kangde - Barcelo Strategic Cooperation Framework Agreement was concluded, which signified a significant step Chongqing’s industries have taken in overseas investment.
Step in overseas travel market
According to the data published by World Tourism Organization, the overseas travel expense of Chinese people last year reached USD102 billion that means Chinese people have become the new champion of the world travel. Spain is just one of the main destinations in Europe where Chinese people choose to visit as the travel to Europe is gradually becoming the hot spot of overseas travel in China. Spain is a country which is described as “the kingdom selling sunshine and beach". There lies a group of islands with attractive beach--Baleares, only 500 kilometers from Barcelona, the 2nd largest city of Spain. This is a well-known tourist attraction of the Mediterranean Sea, and Spanish King Carlos even has a special leisure villa here for his family. Echo (Chen Maoping), a famous Taiwanese writer, has once described the unique charm of the islands in beautiful words, which has attracted a great number of Chinese visitors here to enjoy the sea wind, the sunshine and the exotic experience. It is reported that Chinese people spend billions of dollars annually in Spain, in which the hotel expenditures take a great part. The current blowout of Chinese overseas travel also draws attention from Kangde Group.