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Langham Place and Langham Hotels: A Brand New Road Where East Meets West

Filed under: Luxury Travel & Hotels, By Design

Here is a trend, with a brand worth watching: Langham Hotels International, an older, established international hotel brand is in process of creating and operationalizing a newer, edgier dimension with Langham Place.

Above is their new Langham Place in Pazhou, an island near Guangzhou -- near Macau and Hong Kong on the South China Sea. It will open in 2013, as the only hotel connected to the Guangzhou International Convention and Exhibition Center, site of the Canton Import and Export Fair and Asia's largest Exhibition space. The 488-room property will feature interiors from world-renowned interior design company, Yabu Pushelberg, who has been responsible many projects in luxury retail and hospitality brands within the last decade. There will be at least nine Langham Places opening in the coming few years.

Recently, I interviewed Bob Van de Oord, Senior Vice President of Sales And Marketing for Langham Hotels International, about the process of expanding a brand into the 21st century, a particularly demanding task, as the Langham's root systems were firmly planted in Victorian London in 1865.