Crown to build Australian largest hotel at casino

The third hotel at Australia’s largest casino will cost us$ 267 million and boost accommodation by more than 40 percent, Crown Melbourne, a unit of Sydney-based Publishing & Broadcasting, said today in a statement.

Packer, Australia’s richest man, in May opened his first gaming house in Macau and has led us$ 1.5 billion of casino acquisitions this year after selling most of his media assets to buyout firm CVC Asia Pacific. International visitors to Victoria, Australia’s second-most populous state, rose 5.5 percent to 1.5 million in the year to June, according to the government.

“The proposed new hotel will target the international leisure market but will also focus heavily on the global conventions and conferences industry,’’ Crown Melbourne said in the statement.

Crown expects to start construction of the 658-room hotel this month, with completion in May 2010. It will take advantage of visitors expected for a new convention center that will be completed in 2009. The convention center already has bookings for 17 international events which will bring in 42,000 visitors, the state government said today.

The hotel will take the total number of rooms at the casino to more than 1,600, Crown said. Crown expects the hotel to accommodate 340,000 guests a year. The largest hotel in Australia is the 630-room Four Points hotel in Sydney owned by Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide.

Crown also plans to spend us$ 182 million building retail shops, upgrading an existing hotel and refurnishing the casino, it said in the statement. Publishing & Broadcasting fell 14 cents to us$ 17.37 at the close on the Australian Stock Exchange, extending this year’s decline to 8.4 percent.

Packer is planning to spilt Publishing & Broadcasting into separate gaming and media companies.