Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts promotes Joan Lewis to Director of Sales, Western Europe

Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts has promoted Joan Lewis to director of sales,  Western Europe. In her new role, Joan's responsibility will be to increase business from the UK, France, Benelux and Scandinavia.

Ms Joan Lewis

(click picture to see large version)

Ms Lewis joined Shangri-La in 1991 as director of sales, UK, Scandinavia and the Netherlands, based in the regional sales office, London, from which she will continue to operate. In this position, while managing all market segments in the Netherlands and Scandinavia, Joan increased Shangri-La's corporate sales across the UK.

In her new role Joan takes over responsibility for France and Belgium, as well as continuing to supervise sales in her original market segments. Prior to joining Shangri-La, Joan held sales positions at Hilton Hotels and Pan American World Airways in London.

Commented Ms Lewis, "This is a particularly exciting time in Shangri-La's development and I am looking forward to expanding my responsibilities. We are undergoing a period of significant expansion, with our first non-Asia Pacific hotel opening next year in Dubai, followed by a further two properties in the Arabian Gulf over the next three years.

"The Chinese Mainland is greatly increasing in popularity, particularly following its entry into the WTO and with the forthcoming Beijing Olympics in 2008. We are opening several new hotels in China and we have just announced our first boutique hotel, opening later this year in Putrajaya, Malaysia, so we can provide the European market with a wide range of options across the Asia Pacific region."

Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts currently manages 38 hotels in the Chinese mainland, Fiji, Hong Kong SAR, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan and Thailand, with a rooms inventory of almost 20,000.