The Syrian billionaire who owns the Kingsley hotel says he is looking at opening another five-star hotel in the central business district and a beach resort in Newcastle.
Ghassan Aboud, owner of the Crystalbrook hotel chain, visited the Kingsley on Monday for the first time since it opened in June last year.
He said Newcastle's first five-star hotel, in the council's former "roundhouse" building opposite Civic Park, had been a commercial success and he was now looking at other Newcastle projects.
"It's actually two. One like this and one not like this," he said at a media conference at the Kingsley.
"One building that we will turn into a hotel, and also there's a property, we will see ... but I will try to make it like a resort like what we have in Cairns. It will be a resort for the beach and for families. In Newcastle. Not too far."
The Dubai-based businessman said the potential resort site was not in the central business district.
The other hotel opportunity was an existing building in the inner-city.
"We believe that soon it will be on the market. They've started to talk to us about it. In this area. There is one discussion now running. Maybe we will make an extra hotel quite nearby."
Mr Aboud has spent $500 million on three hotels in Cairns, including buying the former Tradewinds Hotel for $34 million in 2016 and spending $136 million on refurbishing it.
He bought another Cairns hotel for $12 million, knocking it down to make way for the Flynn resort, and built the 255-room Bailey hotel on a vacant lot.
Mr Aboud paid $30 million for the 35-room Little Albion in Sydney in 2018, forked out $41 million for retail magnate Gerry Harvey's Byron at Byron resort in 2019 and bought Brisbane's riverfront Fantauzzzo hotel in 2020.
He also has launched plans for his first Crystalbrook hotel outside Australia, in Brindisi in Italy.
Crystalbrook chief executive Geoff York said the chain had grown large enough to attract property developers.
"This hotel has got people coming to us," he said.
Mr Aboud said the Kingsley conversion had surpassed his expectations, but he was also "happy" with the hotel's commercial results.
"I'm a businessman. In the end I'm interested in the numbers. I see that the numbers are great."
Mr Aboud visited Newcastle with his wife, Nahed, and daughter Joud, who works as a corporate strategy officer for the Ghassan Aboud Group, a multinational conglomerate.
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