Buyers bet on record corporate travel to snap up resort hotels

Los Angeles

AT the Four Seasons resort in Scottsdale, Arizona, corporate customers crowd meeting rooms and bars as vacationers take "cowboy for a day" classes or relax in TV-equipped pool cabanas. It's the business travellers that attract Strategic Hotels & Resorts Inc.

The hotel owner agreed last month to purchase the Four Seasons Resort Scottsdale at Troon North for US$140 million on expectations that a rebound in corporate travel will accelerate, said chairman and president Raymond "Rip" Gellein. The Chicago-based real estate investment trust, which in June acquired Blackstone Group's stake in the luxury Hotel del Coronado near San Diego, is seeking to buy additional resorts in areas such as California and southern Florida, he said.