Ascott ties up with Dongfu Investment to deepen presence in China

CAPITALAND's serviced residence business unit, The Ascott, has formed a strategic alliance with Dongfu Investment Development Corporation as it deepens its presence in China.

The partnership will allow Ascott to have the first right to manage apartments currently under development and future projects to be built by Dongfu Investment - the real estate subsidiary of China State Construction Engineering Company (CSCEC), China's largest state-owned construction and infrastructure builder.

The partnership with Dongfu Investment follows Ascott's recent alliances with other fast-growing companies such as Alibaba's online travel site Alitrip and Tujia.com International, China's largest online apartment sharing platform equivalent to Airbnb, as well as developers like Vanke and Yuexiu.

Lee Chee Koon, Ascott's chief executive officer, said: "These partnerships will allow Ascott to deepen our presence and build scale in key cities; expand our network to new gateway cities; broaden our reach to even more travellers as well as create new seamless O2O (Offline-to-Online and Online-to-Offline) experiences for our guests."

Ascott and Dongfu Investment will kick off the alliance with a management contract for the 148-unit Citadines Guoxitai Xi'an, which is slated to open in 2018.

Kevin Goh, Ascott's managing director for North Asia, said the group aims to expand in cities such as Shanghai and Jinan, tapping Dongfu Investment's major commercial building projects across these cities.

"Our latest partnership with Dongfu Investment will widen Ascott's lead as we advance towards our target of 20,000 units in China by 2020," Mr Goh said.

At least 10 properties are slated to be opened this year by Ascott in various Chinese cities including Beijing, Chongqing, Shenyang, Tianjin and Xiamen.