Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc. has recently marked a new milestone with the opening of Sheraton Macao Hotel, Cotai Central – the largest hotel to open worldwide in 2012. At nearly 4,000 rooms, it is the largest hotel in Starwood’s global portfolio and the biggest hotel to open in Macau. Consisting of two sleek towers overlooking the dazzling Cotai Strip®development, the hotel is home to the world’s largest Sheraton Club Lounge, a main ballroom the size of more than 11 basketball courts, more than 160,000 square feet of meeting space, three signature restaurants, and three outdoor pools with poolside cafes. The opening coincides with the 75th anniversary of the Sheraton brand and widens Starwood’s lead in Asia Pacific, where it is the largest operator of four and five star hotels and on track to reach more than 320 hotels by 2014.Sheraton Macao Hotel, Cotai Central is part of Sands Cotai Central, Macau’s newest, fully integrated resort and a premier shopping, dining and entertainment destination on the Cotai Strip. Easily accessible by air, land and sea, Macau was visited by 13 million tourists in the first half of 2012, with the majority coming from mainland China. Macau has surpassed Las Vegas as the world’s biggest casino market since 2006 and is the only place in China where casino resorts are legal.
Sheraton Macao Hotel, Cotai Central Opens First of Two Towers
Opening in two phases, Sheraton Macao Hotel, Cotai Central today opened Sheraton Sky Tower, featuring 1,829 rooms, the 13,000-square-foot Sheraton Club Lounge, the Kashgar Grand Ballroom and additional meeting space. Other highlights include Palms Lounge, the brand’s signature Link@SheratonTM communications hub in the lobby, the luxurious Sala Pool on level four, Shine Spa and Sheraton Core Performance fitness facility, featuring the Sheraton brand’s revolutionary new health and fitness program, Sheraton Fitness programmed by Core PerformanceTM, designed exclusively for Sheraton guests through its partner Core Performance. The hotel’s second tower (Sheraton Earth Tower) opens early next year, and will offer an additional 2,067 rooms, as well as two more outdoor pools, one offering spectacular views of the Cotai Strip.
The Making of the World’s Largest Sheraton
The construction of Sheraton Macao Hotel, Cotai Central helped boost the Macau economy and provided locals with a wide range of career opportunities. The hotel team hosted a number of job fairs that yielded more than 10,000 job applications, and travelled nearly 10,000 miles to interview 5,000 candidates. As part of the on-the-job training for its 1,500 associates, the hotel conducted a massive, two-week simulation where 10,000 guests arrived to check in and out of 5,000 rooms. The hotel’s uniquely international hotel staff includes speakers of 19 languages including Mandarin, Cantonese, English, German, French, Italian, Vietnamese, Thai, Taiwanese, Japanese, Korean, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Russian, Indonesian and various Chinese dialects.
An enormous amount of planning and preparation was required to create the world’s largest Sheraton. To light its 3,896 guest rooms, the Sheraton Macao Hotel, Cotai Central has purchased and installed 90,796 light bulbs – more than 4.5 times the total number of light bulbs to light the Eiffel Tower. Staff will fold and place 35,217 plush towels in the guest bathrooms, fluff 15,652 pillows, and fold 9,372 bed sheets with perfect hospital corners. The hotel will equip its nearly 4,000 guest rooms with 6,256 Sweet Sleeper beds.
Source: Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc.
