Selina Sold Out of Insolvency 5 Weeks After Collapse – Exclusive

28.08.2024 - 15:12 / skift.com / Sean Oneill

Collective Hospitality, a Singapore-based firm, has acquired most of the business assets of Selina, a hostel brand focused on young travelers.

The deal, announced Wednesday in Singapore, gives Selina another chance at life. Last month, Selina declared insolvency and was delisted from the Nasdaq stock market.

“Our 4- to 5-year gameplan with Selina is to go in and turn things around, drive more incremental revenue and profitability into the business, and create value in it,” said Gary Murray, CEO of parent company Destination Group, in an exclusive interview with Skift. “Ultimately, down the road, we can monetize that value.”

The parties didn’t disclose a price for the deal. The transaction, already completed, includes about 100 hotels, all essentially on long-term lease and managed by Selina.

Remote Year, a travel company that lets employees work in a different city every month, is also included in the deal. Selina had acquired it in 2020.

Collective Hospitality runs about 15 properties aimed at Gen Z travelers under brands such as Bodega Hostels, Slumber Party, and Socialtel Resorts in Thailand and the rest of Southeast Asia. Selina’s properties are in complementary regions — in 22 countries across Latin America and Europe.

Collective Hospitality is part of Destination Group, founded 28 years ago by Murray. The group’s main business has been buying hotels in Southeast Asia via distressed sales and then renovating, rebranding, and repositioning the properties for asset sales. The group also runs a restaurant and bar business called Destination Eats.

At Selina, Murray sees an opportunity to curate hyper-local experiences to drive more revenue from existing assets.

Murray emphasized the importance of guest experience in its strategy: “After Covid, we’re not in the hotel or the room selling business, we’re in the entertainment business, meaning we need to create great guest experiences at all of our properties.”

One idea is for the hostel chain to package “adventures.” Think surf camps, PADI diving certifications, or foreign language workshops. Collective Hospitality could partner with locals to add daily lessons culminating in certification to vacation packages that include accommodation, meals, ground transfers, and plane tickets sourced via wholesalers.

“Our objective is to get occupancy up from the mid-’50s [average percentage] to the mid-’70s across the group,” Murray said.

Another of Murray’s ideas is to use Selina’s hotel kitchens more efficiently by running them in off-hours as “ghost kitchens” for local venues.

Since the pandemic, Destination Group has begun rolling out ghost kitchens across all of its hotels. It now has about 10 virtual brands with specialties like pizza and burgers.

“It’s