Austin Frost has been promoted to regional director of sales and marketing for luxury Asian hotel group Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts.

His responsibility will now encompass outbound sales from Europe, Middle East, North America and Australasia to the group's 38 hotels and resorts in South East Asia.

Still based in Shangri-La's European regional sales office in London and with direct responsibility for the group's non-Asian regional sales offices, Frost will report to Hong Kong-based group director of sales and marketing, Carmen Lam.

Austin joined Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts in 1992 as director of sales for Western Europe and was promoted the following year to director of marketing, Europe.

In this role he has developed Shangri-La's profile in Europe, with particular emphasis on the UK, Germany and France. This market now delivers 17 per cent of total Shangri-La business and continues to grow.

The last 12 months have been spent overseeing developments in the Middle East, particularly in Dubai, where Shangri-La is opening its first non-Asia hotels, The Shangri-La Hotel Dubai and Traders Hotel Dubai, in summer 2003. A further property, Shangri-La's Barr Al Jissah Resort, Muscat, Oman, opens in summer 2005.

"I am greatly looking forward to expanding my responsibilities at such an exciting time in Shangri-La's development," said Frost.

"The three new properties in the Middle East will be immensely important for us, as they represent the first Shangri-La presence outside South East Asia, in an area of the world which is rapidly increasing in popularity."