Following recent hotel openings in Ningbo, Sanya, Yangzhou and Xi’an, Starwood Hotels & Resorts now has 100 hotels operating in China, and plans to open 15 more by the end of this year. 

Starwood will open a total of 23 hotels in China this year, making 2012 the second consecutive record-breaking year for hotel openings in the country. In Q1, the company opened eight properties. 

“In addition to the record-breaking pace at which we are opening hotels in China, we’ve signed 12 new deals in the first three months of 2012 and Greater China accounts for 44 percent of our global pipeline driven by an ever-increasing Chinese domestic travel market, as well as the fast-growing international inbound market,” said Frits van Paasschen, President & CEO of Starwood Hotels & Resorts. “Additionally, China continues to be the richest source of new Starwood guests with more than 600,000 active Starwood Preferred Guest members which is up 62% from last year.”    

Starwood debuted China in 1985 with the opening of The Great Wall Sheraton Hotel in Beijing. The country is now Starwood’s second largest market in the world after the US.  

“About 70% of our hotel openings in Asia this year are in China,” said Simon Turner, President of Global Development for Starwood. “The incredible growth of our portfolio owes itself to the strength of our brands, our strong teams, and the confidence from our investors and owners in delivering world-class hotels and personalized services to our guests.”