)--JAL Hotels Co., Ltd., operator of the Nikko Hotels International chain, will open two Nikko Hotels properties in Suzhou, China. The first, currently under construction in a suburb of Suzhou, opens October 2010. The second, Hotel Nikko Suzhou, will be a five-star hotel in the center of Suzhou, and is slated to open in 2013. These two new hotels will bring the number of Nikko Hotels properties in China to 11. In addition to the Suzhou hotels, JAL Hotels plans to open four more locations, in Shanghai, Wuxi, Guangzhou and Xiamen, all before 2012.

Hotel Nikko Suzhou will be in the center of a high-tech industrial development zone. With 29 stories and 475 rooms, it will include multiple restaurants, banquet and meeting rooms, a pool, fitness center, spa, and a business center. The hotel will be part of a new urban complex under development that features a mixed-use of office buildings, apartments and a shopping center.

The hotel scheduled to open this fall, will be located in the Suzhou Science & Technology Town area of the Suzhou New District, one of the region’s key development areas, and will be a four-star hotel with 200 rooms (90 rooms will open in the first phase).

Suzhou, 62 miles west of Shanghai, is Jiangsu Province’s largest, and one of the Yangtze River Delta’s most important cities. Suzhou is renowned for beautiful ancient gardens that have been named World Heritage Sites by UNESCO.

About Nikko Hotels International | Nikko Hotels International is an international luxury hotel group operated by JAL Hotels Co., Ltd. (), headquartered in Tokyo. In addition to Nikko Hotels, JAL Hotels also operated Hotel JAL City, a chain of 13 mid-priced hotels in Japan. JAL Hotels currently has 58 hotels worldwide, in Europe, the Americas, the Middle East and throughout Japan and the Asia/Pacific region.

In 2010, JAL Hotels plans to open four new Nikko Hotels International properties: 471-room Hotel JAL Tower Dubai in United Arab Emirates; and 388-room Hotel Nikko Shanghai, 500-room Hotel Nikko Wuxi and a new 200-room Suzhou property, in China. Plans for additional Nikko Hotels openings include 436-room Hotel Nikko Xiamen, 411-room Hotel Nikko Guangzhou and 475-room Hotel Nikko Suzhou in China; and 335-room Hotel Nikko Saigon in Vietnam. For more information and photos, visit jalhotels.mediaroom.com.

Tiffany Winbush
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