Tune Hotels comes to Penang

16 April 2009

GEORGE TOWN: AirAsia affiliate Tune Hotels.com has launched its fifth and biggest Tune Hotel in Penang.

The new budget hotel consists of 258 rooms, bringing the total guest capacity of Tune Hotels in the country to 58,310 per month, according to Tune Hotels.com chairman Datuk Seri Kalimullah Hassan.

He said the company had spent RM30mil to refurbish the hotel, located at Jalan Burma, Penang and was looking to build at least two more hotels in the state.

“Two years ago, we bought about 30,000 sq ft in Batu Feringghi near Bayview Beach Resort and we are thinking about what to do there.

From left: Tune Hotels.com founder and director Datuk Seri Tony Fernandes, Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng, Tune Hotels chairman Datuk Seri Kalimullah Hassan and state Tourism, Culture, Arts and Heritage Committee chairman Danny Law launching the new Tune Hotel in Jalan Burma, Penang.

“We are also looking around the George Town city area because we feel Penang can support at least three Tune Hotels,” Kalimullah said during the launching ceremony on Monday.

He added that work had started on hotels in Miri, Johor, Langkawi while two of its hotels in Bali were set to welcome their first guests by the year-end.

“We have received very good response for the hotels so far. The Kuala Lumpur and Sepang hotels are recording 100% and over 90% room occupancy while the Kuching and Kota Kinabalu sites are at about 70%.

“Penang has also recorded close to 100% occupancy since operations began on April 1,” Kalimullah said.

He added that work was in progress to add 65 rooms to the Kuala Lumpur Tune Hotel and the company hoped to have 13 hotels up and running by the first half of 2010.

“We are also looking into business with China and India and if that works out, it will be a quantum leap for us as it will involve 30 to 40 hotels.

“We are being very aggressive but the question is how to tie up with these countries and raise the capital in the current economic situation.

“So now, we are putting in our own money plus raising private equity and with that, we plan to acquire more property,” Kalimullah said.