EVENTS
ABOVE & RIGHT: Chief Development Officers from the world’s leading hotel groups discuss trends and growth TOP RIGHT: Roger Bootle, Managing Director of Capital Economics presents ‘Macro-Economic Overview: Raising The Odds’
which they are willing to invest to speed up
growth of its brands, particularly in emerging markets. A refresh of the Holiday Inn brand was also deemed a success, as Solomons explained: “For a relatively small amount of money we saw an average of 3-5% increase in revPAR.”
Both CEO’s spoke of the importance of their loyalty programmes as a revenue driver, particularly in challenging times. Surprisingly, Solomons stated that 50% or more of room nights come from IHG’s Priority Club Rewards in some parts of the world. Meanwhile, Joly revealed that Carlson and Rezidor planned to double the size of its new Club Carlson programme to 10 million members by 2013.
Co-branding took centre stage in pre- recorded interviews with Rick Hoffman, EVP, Mergers, Acquisitions and Business Development at Marriott International, and Antonio Catalán, President, AC Hotels discussing their joint venture. First announced in March 2011, AC Hotels by Marriott is
expected to be the first of many co-branding partnerships between domestic hotel brands and global hotel chains. Designed to combine the best of Marriott with the best of AC Hotels, the partnership was said to be focusing on growth in Europe and Latin America. The afternoon’s session saw Chief
Development Officers from the world’s leading hotel groups discuss trends and growth. Puneet Chhatwal, EVP & Chief Development Officer at The Rezidor Hotel Group believed lifestyle brands were still the ones to watch, while Patrick Fitzgibbon, SVP Development, Europe & Africa, Hilton Worldwide commented: “The single biggest trend we’re seeing is that we now have the smartest consumers we’ve ever seen. They know what they want and they know how much they want to pay for it.” Carlton C. Ervin, Chief Development Officer, Europe at Marriott International also noted that Middle Eastern money – traditionally linked to trophy assets – was increasingly being invested in
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developments in the mid and lower market tiers.
Delegates too saw the potential of budget / economy hotels with 49% believing that the sector will experience high levels of investment activity over the next 12 months. When it came to the location of future hotel developments, the UK (with 46% of votes) was the most popular choice amongst the big five European markets (UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain) followed by Germany (30%) and France (16%). van Marken summed up the conference commenting: “The outlook remains clouded by uncertainty, with the situation in the Eurozone only adding to the feeling of unease. Corporates in particular are sitting on significant cash but remain reluctant to invest in this environment. We all need confidence to make investment decisions and that continues to be in short supply. Hoteliers, of course, remain eternally optimistic.”
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