Malaysian IGB investing $500 in China

The Malay based IGB, which operates the Cititel hotel chain, plans to invest $500 million over the next five years to develop 'tourist-class' hotels in China under a new brand name.

The group considers 3- to 4-star hotels as tourist-class. Cititel managing director Datuk Eric Lim said the group planned to build about 20,000 tourist-class hotel rooms in the third and fourth-tier cities in China.

He said, 'These tourist-class hotels would be called Cititel Super-Express Hotel, a new brand name which we are developing. There would be at least 1,000 rooms for each of the Cititel Super-Express Hotel to be developed in China.'