Langham resort coming to Queensland island

The Langham already has a hotel in Sydney and Melbourne and had plans to open a new hotel in an upmarket beachside suburb of Adelaide this year, however the project has been delayed. Perth is also in their sights.

The group would not comment on the specifics of the two Queensland projects but the first is understood to be part of the Chinese developer Yuhu Group’s luxury mixed-use project Jewel on the Gold Coast, following a move earlier this year by the developer to acquire more land.

Chief executive of Langham Hospitality Group Stefan Leser told the The Australian Financial Review during his brief trip to Sydney on Tuesday that he saw a lot of potential for The Langham brand in Australia.

“It’s about the key cities that have the demand for a product like ours and then it’s obviously the resorts and there is an eco component to it. The imagination is limitless, whether it’s wine regions or the Blue Mountains or the islands, as long as it’s a development or an opportunity that I think is something we can contribute to.

“We are looking at not only islands but inland also,” he said.

Mr Leser, who joined Langham 15 months ago as chief executive, said he was tasked with tackling two key challenges for the hotel group.

“One is to fill in the blank spots from a footprint perspective and at the same point in time we need to simply communicate what we already have,” he said.

A renewed focus on Europe (the group’s first hotel was established in London in 1865) will also see two new hotels added to the Langham portfolio – one in Munich and another in Venice – it was revealed on Tuesday.

“We have the biggest potential and necessity in Europe, which is where the focus lies at the moment,” Mr Leser said.

He said while there was not a dearth of luxury hotels in Europe, there was a “lack of Langhams”.

“Europe is a very different market. There are a lot of unbranded, unaligned, unassociated properties and we are not a scale game, we aren’t about adding 100 to have more hotels, it’s about how can we grow where we legitimately add value with our services. Excellence and execution sounds trivial but it is what will make people come back [to our hotels],” he said.

The Langham group has been very active in Asia over the past few years with investment in mainland China through both the Langham and Cordis brands.

“We are also growing our second brand Cordis, which we have in Auckland, as well as lots of Cordis properties in China. In terms of the Chinese market, as you might imagine we are just scratching the surface of the potential,” Mr Leser said.