M&C hotels join fight against pandemic

Singapore

MILLENNIUM & Copthorne Hotels (M&C) has been putting its hotel properties in Singapore and around the world to good use, in an effort to help governments tackle the Covid-19 pandemic.

In Singapore, M Hotel, Copthorne King's Hotel and Studio M Hotel have been turned into isolation facilities for all returning Singaporeans and long-term residents to serve out a mandatory 14-day stay-home notice.

When Malaysia announced a movement control order on March 18 that prohibited its citizens from travelling abroad, workers who commute to Singapore for work were affected.

M&C properties including Orchard Hotel offered discounted accommodation to affected staff from companies. Staff of Grand Copthorne Waterfront also passed the hat around as part of a donation drive to help a home for the aged that was hit by the virus.

"We have over 2,600 rooms in Singapore and all hotels have been hit by low occupancies as guests cancelled or stayed away," said M&C executive chairman Kwek Leng Beng in a news release.

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"But other people like medical care-givers and ordinary workers affected by the outbreak and restriction on movements also suffer. In our small way, we try to pitch in. It is good to put our resources to good use by supporting the government's efforts to house returning Singaporeans," he added.

M&C - a wholly-owned subsidiary of City Developments Ltd (CDL) - currently has more than 145 hotels across 80 locations worldwide, with about 43,000 rooms in total.

In New Zealand, M&C's 452-room Grand Millennium Auckland has government approval to provide essential services to help stranded overseas visitors and air crew who are working to bring New Zealand citizens home.

The group's UK properties, including the Millennium Gloucester Hotel London Kensington and Copthorne Tara Hotel London Kensington, are accepting reservations from government-approved categories of travellers like infrastructure workers and government employees.

Chelsea Football Club also worked with the UK National Health Service to offer 128 M&C hotel rooms for medical staff working in hospitals in West London. These rooms are a reprieve for staff unable to travel home or would otherwise have to make long commutes each day, said M&C in its news release.

M&C's hotels in various US cities such as Boston, Los Angeles and New York are offering lower room rates for medical personnel and other key workers.

In China, Grand Millennium Beijing worked with businesses and non-profit organisations to donate medical supplies to frontline hospitals and medical institutions in Hubei, Henan and Shandong provinces, Beijing, Tianjin and Hong Kong.