Four Points Hotel Roster Grows by 10

WHITE PLAINS-Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide is boosting the presence of its Four Points by Sheraton brand globally, opening 10 new properties worldwide before year’s end. A Starwood spokeswoman tells GlobeSt.com the roll-out of new hotels will continue into 2011 and beyond.

Four of the new Four Points locations will be domestic, with Galveston, TX opening this month, Tucson, AZ scheduled to debut in October and new hotels due for Houston and Memphis in December. On the global front, Starwood has planted the Four Points flag on a Lagos, Nigeria location this month, and will do the same in November in Bangkok as well as Tripoli, Libya and Tai’an, China.

December will see a pair of new sites in India as Four Points properties debut in Pune and Visakhapatnam. The new locations range in size from 79 keys in the Houston location to 311 in Tai’an. Expansion through the end of 2010 brings the number of countries represented on the Four Points map to 28, up from 24.

In a release, Simon Turner, Starwood’s president of global development, cites the “halo effect” of Sheraton along with the “value and comfort” of Four Points. “We’re seeing tremendous excitement among our partners and developers around the world for this brand,” says Turner.

A spokeswoman says Starwood will open another 23 Four Points locations between 2011 and 2013. Twelve of those will occur in North America, with 10 openings slated for the Asia Pacific region, including seven in China, and one in Europe. The brand, which has the second-largest pipeline among Starwood flags, opened its 150th location in late August.