Hong Kong’s Swire Hotels to launch branded residence in Bangkok under Upper House branding as part of global expansion
The branded residence is likely to be one of its kind as the firm looks to open its hotels in gateway cities
Lionel Lim
HONG Kong-based Swire Hotels announced on Thursday (Oct 16) that it is launching its first branded residence in South-east Asia under the Upper House hotel branding.
The project, Upper House Residences Bangkok, is a 52-storey tower with 156 units. It is near The Wireless Residences by Upper House, a 71-storey tower with 239 units, which will also be managed by the luxury hotel operator. Both towers are freehold properties sited on Wireless Road, an upscale area in the Thai capital known for its embassies, high-end homes and hotels.
The development is a joint venture between the Thailand-based developer City Realty Company and Swire Properties, the Hong Kong-based developer and parent company of Swire Hotels. Construction of the project started in April, and is expected to be completed by 2030.
“It’s really about how we can bring that sort of hotel fairy dust to a residential development,” Swire Hotels’s managing director Dean Winter told The Business Times.
The announcement comes a day after Swire Hotels unified all its existing and new hotel properties under The House Collective. These properties include The Upper House in Hong Kong, The Temple House in Chengdu and The Middle House in Shanghai, which now come under the new Upper House branding.
Winter said the Bangkok project came down to “opportunity and timing”, and added that affluent travellers, particularly those from Bangkok, are familiar with the brand.
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While branded residences represents a new foray for Swire Hotels, Winter said this project could help with brand recognition in South-east Asia.
Swire Hotels is expected to combine some of its luxury hotel management services with those for the Upper House Residences in Bangkok. This will create an “aspirational value” for buyers, which aligns with the values underpinning the hotels Swire operates, said Winter.
Swire Properties currently has a residential property under construction in Jakarta and another mixed-used development in Ho Chi Minh City, but Winter said those are unlikely to turn into branded residences.
When asked about the company’s new global strategy, Winter revealed that there have been discussions with developers in three South-east Asia markets – Singapore, Vietnam and Thailand – along with Japan, South Korea and Australia. He added that the company wanted to stay “close to our Asian roots”.
He revealed Swire Hotels will focus on opening new Upper House hotels in “gateway cities” and that there will be a maximum of 15 hotels under this brand globally.
There are currently three hotels under the Upper House branding, two in mainland China – in Chengdu and Shanghai -- and one in Hong Kong. There are three new hotel openings under this branding in the pipeline for Swire Hotels, one in Shenzhen in 2027, in Xi’an in 2028, and in Tokyo in 2029.
The company is looking at South-east Asia, Japan, South Korea and Australia for most of the remaining Upper House hotels.
Expanding into South-east Asia and the rest of the Asia-Pacific also comes amid slower recovery and growth in the hospitality sector in Greater China.
Swire Properties acknowledged in its 2025 interim report released in August that the recovery of the hotel market in Hong Kong has been slower than expected, and that the performance of its hotel business in mainland China has been mixed.
Winter said that while there is “encouraging demand” for rooms in mainland China, the rates are still “perhaps a bit tepid”.
Swire Properties’ revenue from its hotel business was HK$441 million (S$73.4 million) for the first six months of this year, down 5.2 per cent from the same period last year, though it did manage to narrow its losses.
Swire Properties’ hotel business had an operating loss of HK$53 million for the first six months of this year, an improvement from the HK$57 million loss in the corresponding period the year before.
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