Tl;dr – IHG will bring back the Regent Hotel Brand to Australia in 2030 with the opening of the Regent Melbourne
It seems I’m not the only one who thinks Melbourne is an underrated city deserving of more luxury properties. IHG just announced a slew of new openings (rebrands) in Australia, headlined by the return of an iconic luxury brand, the Regent Hotel brand, to Australia. For those unfamiliar with Regent Hotels, Regent Hotels & Resorts is a British-American luxury hospitality brand founded in 1970 that’s now part of IHG Hotels & Resorts. One of the more iconic Regent properties is the Regent Hong Kong, which many consider the best luxury hotel in the competitive Hong Kong market. The other week, I wrote about the Standard X Melbourne as one of the more intriguing new Hyatt properties. Last year, I stayed at Melbourne’s latest luxury hotel addition, The Ritz-Cartlon Melbourne (review forthcoming). Let’s dive into what we know.
The Regent Melbourne will rebrand the current Intercontinental Melbourne By IHG (IC Melbourne). The IC Melbourne is located in a trio of old historic buildings, the Rialto, Winfield, and Olderfleet building group, a poignant example of the city’s Victorian architecture.
The IC Melbourne currently has 253 guest rooms and suites.
While we don’t know the specs of what’s planned for the Regent post-renovation, suffice it to say that the hotel will have a much larger footprint. Here is the current IC Melbourne next to the featured photo depicting a rendering of the Regent Melbourne.
That inverted Harvester mothership can fit at least another room or two, right?
Though the current Intercontinental Melbourne will undergo a significant renovation (and rebrand) to become the Regent Melbourne, that doesn’t mean the Intercontinental brand is leaving the Melbourne market. As part of this announcement, IHG revealed that the current Crowne Plaza Melbourne will become the new InterContinental Melbourne. Elsewhere in Australia, the Crowne Plaza Sydney Coogee Beach will transition to the InterContinental Sydney Coogee Beach. The Crowne Plaza Canberra will become the InterContinental Canberra, and we’ll also see a new Hotel Indigo in Canberra.
It’s unclear exactly how much the renovation of the IC Melbourne will cost, though the combined investment figure of Salter Brothers, the hospitality-finance firm, partnering with IHG to lead all of these projects is said to be north of $1bn.
