Swire Hotels rebrands The House Collective to Upper House

Swire Hotels has unified three of its leading properties under a new brand name as it enters a “bold phase of international growth”.

The Upper House Hong Kong, The Temple House Chengdu and The Middle House Shanghai were formerly grouped under The House Collective, but will now be unified under the single brand of Upper House.

The properties have been renamed to Upper House Hong Kong, Upper House Chengdu and Upper House Shanghai.

To support the rebrand, Upper House has unveiled a new logo, website and photography.

Swire Hotels said the move built on the success of Upper House Hong Kong, which has been ranked in the top five of the World’s 50 Best Hotels for two consecutive years. All three properties were also recognised in the inaugural global Michelin Keys selection, with Upper House Hong Kong receiving Two Keys and Upper House Chengdu and Upper House Shanghai both receiving One Key.

Swire Hotels’ lifestyle brand East Hotels remains unchanged.

Managing director Dean Winter told Aspire: “The naming convention has been something we’ve been scratching our head around and, at the end of the day, we recognise that, because of the awards, Upper House Hong Kong is really our HQ in Hong Kong. We felt that there’s a lot of untapped equity in the Upper House brand, which we can quite easily unlock by applying the name to all future Houses.

“[All the existing hotels] are individual, they’ve all got strong senses of place within their respective neighbourhoods, and we feel very comfortable that they can maintain that. It makes a lot of sense as we look ahead to the future with a plan to have many more hotels in the region and elsewhere; the Upper House name is something that resonates with international markets.”

Upper House unveils a new logo

Swire Hotels said the rebrand “signalled a new era for the group” as it embarks on a significant period of expansion.

Upper House will open properties in Shenzhen in 2027, Xi’an in 2028 and Tokyo in 2029, with its first branded residences project in Bangkok following in 2030 - a move Winter labelled as a "natural evolution" for the brand.

“We understand how important it is for people to make their homes in our hotels, and in parallel, over the years, we’ve seen how other brands have been successful in branding residences through other developments for sale, so there’s clearly a business case for it," Winter said.

“At the end of the day, people want to be close to brands they trust. We feel that this Bangkok opportunity is remarkable in terms of where it is and the ambition of the developer. These opportunities come to us and we hope there will be more in the future. In an ideal world, we’d like to do a hotel and residences combined.”

Winter said the group aims to have 20 properties across Upper House and East Hotels either open or in the pipeline by 2030.

“We’re a Hong Kong China company and the Chinese mainland is always going to be a big part of our portfolio, but we’ve now got this mandate [from the board] to grow the company throughout the Asia Pacific region,” he said.

“We’ve got a modest team that works through the various brokers and consultants to get a seat at the RFP table, so we can pitch the brand to emerging opportunities. We’ve talked broadly about having 20 hotels across both East and Upper, signed or open by 2030, so if we could hit that number, then I think we’d be quite happy.”

Asked where the group had its eye on, Winter said: “We would like to do another hotel in the US if we can. Because of the success of East Miami, we do have a network and recognition there. We would love to do an Upper House in the US; it would complement East Miami perfectly.”

Winter said the UK market had been slower to return to "the heights of pre-Covid” in Hong Kong, but said business on the books for October and November looked “very strong”.