New plans include land-use changes, marketing drive

[SINGAPORE] Bintan Resorts has plans - and a new chief executive - to bring back the tourists and revive development in the area, but it may take a while before the ideas materialise.

Since Bintan Resorts was set up in 1990 to develop the northern coast of the Indonesian island, about $1 billion has been poured into building infrastructure, hotels and resorts. The 23,000-hectare coastal strip - which now accommodates 10 hotels, some spas and four golf courses - still has pockets of land that can be developed.

'We want to start selling the land in two to three years, so in five years we should see a doubling of hotel rooms and, therefore, visitors,' said Yeo Khee Leng, chief executive of Island Leisure International - the master planner of Bintan Resorts. Bintan welcomes about 300,000 visitors a year to its 1,300 rooms.

The focus in the next few years will be developing Lagoi Bay, which is between the existing Banyan Tree and Angsana Resort & Spa and Club Med Ria Bintan.

Bintan used to sell plots about the size of Sentosa, but Mr Yeo said most people take a long time to develop the land and not many developers would buy 'such a big piece in one shot'. The solution: sell smaller plots.

'Instead of 200, 300 hectares, we're willing to sell as small as half or one hectare to maybe about 10 hectares,' he said.

'That means now you can say, I just want to build a hotel and I don't want to worry about a golf course or other things. Give me a piece of land that just fits'.

'So that's the kind of things we are now willing to do. If you want a small boutique hotel, that's OK. But if you want a larger hotel, we can give you five, 10 hectares. We are much more flexible in selling the land.'

Mr Yeo said the company's investment team - a four-person outfit - has spoken with several potential investors but hasn't started selling the land. It also wants to put Bintan back on the regional map.

'As you can see, for the past few years we've (seen) steady visitor flow, but at the mention of Bintan, the image is not really there,' he said. 'We want to come out of this haziness. We want to say, hey, we're here and there's some interesting stuff, come and have a look'.'

Part of the strategy to raise the profile of Bintan is marketing the area as a beach, spa and golf resort, and building a 'main street' along the lines of Kuta in Bali and Patong in Phuket.

Mr Yeo said about half of Bintan's visitors are from overseas and the rest are Singaporeans. 'The marketing is to offer a complementary product to major destinations like Singapore or other South-east Asian destination cities. There's a lot going on in Singapore, but there's also a lot that Singapore doesn't have - and one of these things is a beach.'

Bintan Resorts will also transform itself into a spa destination by expanding existing facilities and adding more luxury products.

'As a tourism product, it's relatively young,' Mr Yeo said of the island. 'We've been interrupted in our development by a whole lot of challenges, like financial challenges. We've had people who cancelled development projects who told us, Sorry, because of the financial crisis we have to re-evaluate'.'

Part of the attraction of investing in Bintan is the 80-year lease the Indonesian government grants there.

'You can't get freehold land in Indonesia,' investment manager Ann Chan said, adding that there is much more room for growth in Bintan than in mature destinations such as Bali.

'If you go to Bali today, there is not much undeveloped land that you can use,' she said. 'In Bintan, there is so much potential.'