QE2 liner may return to Hong Kong as a floating hotel
Ship will be back in summer on its way to mainland dockyard to be refitted, with choice of Hong Kong or Singapore as its initial base
The iconic luxury passenger liner Queen Elizabeth 2 is set to return to Hong Kong this summer on its way to a mainland shipyard, where it will be refitted to become a floating hotel.
The former Cunard flagship, which visited the city several times before being retired in 2008 and sold to the Dubai investment company Istithmar World, is likely to stay for several days in July or August.
Daniel Chui, managing director of Singapore's Oceanic Group, said talks are continuing to bring the ship back to Hong Kong once the conversion work has been completed.
Hong Kong and Singapore are the two cities being considered for the ship's initial base as a floating hotel.
"The perfect location is definitely Hong Kong or Singapore," Chui said: both cities have a shortage of hotel rooms and a large number of tourist arrivals. The ship could itself become a tourist attraction.
A longer-term plan also being considered is for the QE2, which served as a troop ship during the 1982 Falklands war, to make a circuit, spending "X years in Hong Kong, Y years in Japan and Z years in South Korea", Chui said.
He remained confident the QE2 would be a financial success, saying it offered a better internal rate of return than a conventional land-based hotel. The refitting, including work by shipyards in Dubai and on the mainland, will cost US$100 million.
