CONSIDERING ITS EXTENSIVE cultural and historical ties between Hong Kong and Great Britain, London would seem like a logical location for a Peninsula Hotel. But the world's oldest hospitality group-founded in 1866-is only this spring arriving in the British capital, with the opening of a 190-room property in Belgravia.
What took them so long? “I've been CEO for 20 years, and the search for this site began long before I arrived,” says Clement Kwok, managing director and CEO of Hongkong and Shanghai Hotels, the Peninsula's parent company. That site is a 650,000-square-foot quasi-city block that required some three decades to identify, acquire and develop. After more than five years of construction, the Peninsula London, which overlooks both Hyde Park Corner and Wellington Arch, will finally
