I'm coming back to Kuala Lumpur twice later this year and because I'm a borderline OCD planner I'm already looking into new hotels to expand the fairly meager luxury hotel offering in the city. It seems the prevailing attitude these days is that Four Seasons is the lone luxury offering as the MO is starting to have a very dated hard product by comparison. Plenty of extremely good value 2nd tier offerings in the likes of Shangri-la, Grand Hyatt, RuMa etc but lonely at the top for 4s. So I took it upon me to check out if there are any potential new blood coming along.

Waldorf Astoria
Originally set to open in 2024 the latest communication has the hotel as opening in spring 2025. So I guess we shouldn't hold our breath. While the location is as central as you can get I hope they do a bit with the surroundings which was rather sparse when the property was the Istana Hotel.

Park Hyatt
Taking bookings for late August this year so I guess this is actually happening. Located inside the Merdeka 118, the 2nd tallest building in the world. Some of the rooms will be located as high as the 112th floor. If the advance pricing is any indication this will be the most expensive hotel in KL by quite a margin. I'm tempted to go for the novelty but I suspect my wife who gets dizzy easily will make it a hard sell...

Kimpton
Set to open Q4. I like the Kimpton brand but from the buzz it feels like this will be more of a 5* than a luxury hotel. While glammy, the Tun Razak area has always felt a little sterile to me. I will most likely give it an honest shot.