IHG Starts Luxe Collection With Two Hotels in Asia
Hotel X Brisbane: One of the first two hotels to join Vignette. Photo: Hotel X
Grand Sole Pattaya will shed its history as a popular three-star hotel after renovations and embark on a new journey as part of Vignette Collection. Photo: Pattaya-hotels
August 24, 2021
IHG ushers in its new luxury and lifestyle brand, Vignette Collection, with two hotels in Asia-Pacific, the Grand Sole Pattaya Beach Hotel, Thailand, and Hotel X, Brisbane, Australia.
The Grand Sole is a three-star hotel popular with European tour operators such as TUI. It was acquired by the biggest hotel group in Thailand, Asset World Corporation (AWC) in 2020. The property is closed and undergoing a conversion that is expected to be completed in early 2024. By then it should have the chops to fit Vignette’s luxury & lifestyle promise.
An IHG media release referred to the Grand Sole as “Pattaya Aquatique” hotel. It is part of the Aquatique on The Beachfront Pattaya, a city landmark by AWC to pave a new chapter in Pattaya as a lifestyle destination. When opened 2023/2024, it will include hotels, shopping mall, theme park, Legoland, performance art space, F&B seafood market and underground aquarium.
But there is already a 306-room Aquatique Pattaya, Autograph Collection, which AWC earlier signed with Marriott International. It’ll be interesting to see how the two collections in the same district will reflect what they stand for. Or simply confuse customers – especially if AWC sticks to renaming the Grand Sole as “Pattaya Aquatique” when the hotel’s renovation is completed in early 2024. This is unlikely.
The other property, Hotel X, is a five star, its cool looks and audacious invitation for guests to stay “somewhere decadent, somewhere different, somewhere wild” should make a few other luxury collections furious for losing it to Vignette.
Friendly rivalry among global chains to get independent hotels and small chains into their collections is up several notches, particularly in Asia, where Covid-19 has increased opportunities for conversions and franchising, rather than the more expensive management contract, which comes with high upfront costs.
Over the next 10 years, IHG expects Vignette Collection to attract more than 100 properties globally.