Radisson Red, Cape Town


This has a focus on creating a “vibrant and dynamic gathering place,” according to Best Western CEO David Kong, who insists the “boutique and lifestyle hotel trend is not a fad – in many ways it is the future of the hospitality industry”.


THE LUXURY GENERATION Not all newcomers, however, are boutique in size. Spanish hotel group NH Hotels, for example, recently announced plans for the biggest hotel in the Benelux countries under its new Nhow brand, which it says is “designed for the nomadic bohemian luxury generation that best describes our age”. The 650-plus room Nhow Amsterdam RAI will be part of the new RAI exhibition and conference complex due to open in the city in late 2018. There are already Nhow hotels in Milan, Berlin and Rotterdam. But it is the top ten global hotel groups


that are driving brand expansion around the world. The ten, as monitored by MKG Hospitality, account for some 117 individual brands, with at least a quarter of these having been launched over the past decade. Leading the way is Marriott International with 19 individual brands, followed by Accor (17) and Wyndham (15). Globally, branded hotels account for


about 53 per cent of the worldwide hotel market, according to consultancy HVS, with the balance comprising unbadged independent properties. But there is a wide variation between the two biggest global markets: MKG reports that around two-thirds of North American hotels are in branded chains, while in Europe it is only just over a quarter. Yet the impetus towards branded hotels seems irresistible. HVS points out that five of the biggest chains – IHG, Marriott, Accor, Hilton and Starwood – “together


76 BBT SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2015


It is the top ten global hotel groups that are driving brand expansion around the world


account for 30 per cent of the current global branded room supply and 65 per cent of the development pipeline, which indicates an increasing shift away from independently operated hotels worldwide”. Even so, the leading groups are not ignoring the independent hotels market. An emerging strategy is for the major chains to create so-called ‘soft’ brands to offer independent hotels the marketing and distribution ben- efits they already provide for their owned brands (called ‘hard’ in hospitality industry jargon – see Soft Sell, BBT May-June 2015.)


Such soft brands – which are usually


called ‘collections’ – include Marriott’s Autograph, Ascend from Choice Hotels, and Hilton’s Curio. The latest iteration of this concept is Starwood’s Tribute Portfolio, launched in April this year. Underpinning this strategy is the shift


away by global hoteliers from actually owning physical hotel assets to just being the brand manager of a hotel, which is either run under a franchise or manage- ment contract. IHG, for example, recently sold its five-star Intercontinental Hotel in Hong Kong for US$938 million to an investment consortium, although retained the management contract, which will earn it US$8 million a year in fees. Many American investors, however, are backing the British hotel industry, which is performing strongly this year as the economy grows. Figures from real estate company JLL (formerly Jones Lang LaSalle) reveal that in the first half of the year, nearly


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