Atour Goes Public to Expand Lifestyle Hotel Trend in China

25.08.2023 - 14:34 / skift.com / Sean Oneill

Here are some excerpts from Daily Lodging Report from the past week. If you’re not a subscriber, you should be. Get news on hotel deals, development, stocks, and career moves. Sign up here, now.

China-based hotel chain Atour Lifestyle Holdings made its trading debut. It raised $52 million in an IPO of 4.8 million American depositary shares offered at $11, the low end of the previously announced range. ATAT ended Friday’s session at $12.88, up 17 percent on its first trading day. (More context, below, and more on China’s hotel construction, below.)

Pathfinder Hospitality announced the grand opening of the 140-room Aloft Austin Southwest, in South Austin, Texas.

Ikenakea Hokele plans to replace an existing parking lot and vacant warehouse, in Honolulu, Hawaii, with a 240-room hotel adjacent to Aloha Tower Marketplace. The hotel will have about 31,000 square feet of meeting and flex spaces, as well as a rooftop bar and restaurant. The $128 million project still has regulatory approvals to clear. 

Skift Note: Atour offers lifestyle hotel brands, such as Atour S, Atour Hotel, Atour X, and Atour Light, and says it’s the largest upper-midscale hotel chain in China. As of September 30, Atour had opened 880 hotels, a year-on-year increase of 26 percent. Capitalizing on its lifestyle brand cred, it offers scenario-based retail brands, such as Atour Market, and private-label products.

Red Roof held its annual brand conference, telling its franchise owners that revenue for the brand from January through September 2022 rose 10 percent year over year, and revenue per available room was up 9 percent. Direct bookings were 22 percent up versus the year earlier, and revenue from its central reservation system was up 19 percent.

B.Riley lowered its price target for Braemar Hotels & Resorts to $9 from $12; on Ashford Inc. to $18 from $23 and on Ashford Hospitality Trust to $9 from $12. BHR and AHT were both down -5% while AINC was up 3%.

Skift Note: We imagine that one or two of the large hotel groups have their eyes on Red Roof as a possible acquisition. The Columbus, Ohio-based company has owned its niche in upscale economy lodging, and earlier this year surpassed 60,000 guest rooms across the United States.

Bloomberg published an article suggesting Fosun International Ltd. is exploring the potential for sales of most of the company’s divisions, seeking capital to repay debt. Bloomberg said Fosun is also considering strategic options for French luxury resort chain Club Med SAS and could seek a valuation of about $1.5 billion for the business in a transaction. Yet Fosun Tourism Group said they have no intention of selling Club Med. Last month Fosun reported Club Med revenue rose 145 percent year on year in the first