The as yet unnamed buyer of the Hotel 13 in Coloane has plans to turn the hotel into a new tourism landmark through extensive renovations and by introducing world-renowned restaurants.
Mark Wong, the local director at real estate firm JLL, shared that the buyer has considerable experience in international real estate investment. According to Wong, the sale is testament to “the ongoing recovery of Macao’s tourism industry and the new buyer’s strong confidence in Macao.”
The president of the Travel Industry Council of Macao, Andy Wu, said in an interview with local news outlet Exmoo that a new landmark hotel would likely help to boost Macao’s appeal, and is a welcome addition to the local travel industry at a time when visitor arrivals are near pre-Covid levels.
[See more: Macao’s beleaguered 13 Hotel has finally been sold]
The long-troubled Hotel 13 was finally sold earlier this month for a mere HK$600 million (US$76 million) – a huge discount on the original asking price of HK$2.4 billion.
The property was originally conceived by Hong Kong entrepreneur Stephen Hung as an ultra-luxury hotel. However, a series of funding and construction delays led to the hotel’s opening in September 2018 with unfinished rooms and no gaming facilities.
The exorbitant construction cost (at around US$1.6 billion), obscure location, and outlandishly gaudy design, as well as the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic at the start of 2020, meant that the hotel struggled from the beginning. Its parent company South Shore declared insolvency in 2020 and became delisted from the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in 2023.
