Dubai billionaire brings luxury hotel brand to Canberra in $200m deal

“We’d like to take Crystalbrook to the Middle East, to the Far East and into Northern Europe,” he said.

“We see many opportunities in markets that are growing like Australia, such as Finland and Norway.”

In a deal struck with local developer Tony Pan’s TP Dynamics, Crystalbrook will open a 238-room hotel at Canberra’s Garema Place in the first quarter of 2027. The project has an end value of about $200 million.

The 10-storey hotel will include Canberra’s first rooftop bar, a wellness centre, function rooms and a ballroom.

Mr Pan acquired the DA-approved 1503 sq m site at 70 Bunda Street and 47 Garema Place – opposite the Canberra Centre – for $30 million a year ago from another ACT developer Geocon, which had pursued hotel plans on the site since 2018.

The development of a new luxury hotel at Garema Places comes as the ACT government works on plans to revitalise the outdoor dining and retail precinct.

For Mr Aboud, the Canberra hotel is the ninth Crystalbrook property in a $1 billion property portfolio put together over the past eight years.

The ACT deal follows Mr Aboud and local Crystalbrook CEO Geoff York revealing plans to open the group’s first Adelaide hotel in 2026 in a development by the Samaras Group.

Mr Aboud also owns the Rydges Sydney Harbour at The Rocks, which he purchased for $100 million in September 2022. It has been rebranded as the Sydney Harbour Hotel, but will eventually be renovated and reopened under the Crystalbrook banner.

Another yet-to-be-revealed Sydney hotel has also been snapped under a hotel management agreement – part of a strategy to move away from a pure ownership model.

Crystalbrook’s expansion into Canberra comes as a consortium of investors led by property veterans Mervyn Basserabie, Allen Linz of Rebel Property Group and Eduard Litver of Capit.el Group agreed to pay more than $215 million for the Intercontinental Hotel in Double Bay (offered by developer Piety Group) with plans to reposition it as a mixed-use precinct.

Speaking to the Financial Review, Mr Aboud praised Australia as a “very beautiful country, and a stable and safe business destination” and said he was keen to open hotels in Melbourne and Perth as well as New Zealand.

“We will see. If an opportunity comes along suddenly, we will grab it like an eagle,” he said.

Mr York said securing a Melbourne hotel site was a priority but the Docklands area was a definite no-go.

“We don’t want to be in Docklands, where we are watching hotels sell for less than what they cost to develop,” he said.

The last hotel to sell in Docklands was the 373-room Four Points by Sheraton, acquired by MA Financial for $96 million last month.

Born and educated in Syria, Mr Aboud moved to Dubai in the early 1990s where he established Ghassan Aboud Cars, an export business. That has since grown into the GA Group, a conglomerate with interests in retail, hospitality, food, logistics, catering, media and healthcare.

On the advice of a friend, he visited Australia for the first time in 2015, with an initial plan to invest in hospitals and the healthcare sector.

However, he saw better opportunities in hospitality after swooping in on his first Australian hotel, the Rydges Tradewinds in Cairns, which he bought for $34 million in 2016 and turned into the first Crystalbrook hotel.

Since establishing a base in Cairns with three hotels, Crystalbrook has expanded into Sydney, Byron Bay, Brisbane and Newcastle. It also owns 16 restaurants and bars, three spas and the Crystalbrook Superyacht Marina in Port Douglas.

The Crystalbrook Albion hotels in Surry Hills and the Port Douglas Marina are up for sale.

Mr Aboud ruled out franchising the Crystalbrook brand, which has a strong sustainability ethos. “All our hotels will be owned or managed by us,” he said.