Hard Rock’s hotel brand is being dropped from Genting Singapore Ltd’s Resorts World Sentosa (RWS) casino resort in Singapore, as the complex proceeds with planned expansion.

“As of March 2, 2024, the Hard Rock Hotel Singapore [pictured] will no longer operate under the Hard Rock brand name,” stated a notice on the property’s website.

“This hotel will undergo a complete makeover as part of Resorts World Sentosa’s expansion plans, which will see a dramatic transformation of the integrated resort over the coming years,” noted the property’s promoter.

The 360-room Hard Rock Hotel Singapore opened in late January 2010, alongside the Resorts World Sentosa. With a US$223-million price tag, the Hard Rock Hotel Singapore was at the time one of six hotels at the complex.

Bookings for the hotel will still be valid until March 1. The property’s promoter said that any bookings for after that date would be “honoured” by accommodating guests “in an equivalent guestroom at Hotel Ora” – the complex’s newest 5-star hotel – “at no additional charges”.

Genting Singapore stated that the Hard Rock Hotel Singapore would be “closed to make way for a new luxury hotel”.

In November, Genting Singapore said its board had approved a total investment of about SDG6.80 billion (US$5.06 billion) to upgrade and expand Resorts World Sentosa.

The figure includes “amounts which have been spent and the remainder to be invested over the next eight years,” stated the company at the time. That was a reference to a previous SGD4.5-billion pledge to the city-state’s authorities for the expansion of the complex, known as “RWS 2.0”.

The company said that what it termed its “Waterfront development” had received the local “government’s provisional permission,” with construction “set to commence in 2024”.

The Waterfront site is due to offer approximately 700 hotel rooms and “biophilic architecture”, designed by international architecture firm Benoy.