Here are the top stories from the Daily Lodging Report newsletter in the past week. Get news on hotel deals, development, stocks, and career moves. Sign up here now.
25.08.2023 - 13:56 / skift.com / Asia Pacific / Sean Oneill / Pranavi Agarwal / Chris Nassetta
Skift’s Senior Research Analyst Pranavi Agarwal and Senior Hospitality Editor Sean O’Neill went live this week on LinkedIn to discuss Skift Research’s latest report that looks at hotel performance and unit growth by chain scale in times of crisis and recession in the U.S.
Key topics of discussion were the expected resilience of the luxury segment in a potential 2023 recession — unlike what has been seen in prior downturns — as well as portfolio development of the branded players towards the opportunistic luxury and midscale space. Many of the themes discussed will be examined in further detail at our Future of Lodging Forum in London on March 29.
We also provide a short excerpt from the full report here, focussing on the market share opportunities for the branded players.
Brands are pushing further into the luxury space — globally, branded luxury rooms account for 6% of the total branded supply across all the chain scales, but 8 percent of the pipeline, with majority of growth coming from luxury resort hotels in Caribbean & Mexico and from Asia Pacific.
During fourth quarter 2022 earnings, Hyatt management said that in 2022, 66 percent of their gross room additions were in the luxury, lifestyle, or resort properties, with “nearly 135,000 luxury lifestyle and resort rooms now part of our portfolio, a number that is larger than the entirety of our portfolio just a decade ago”. IHG management said that their luxury and lifestyle estate represents 13% of their existing rooms, but 20 percent of the pipeline, suggesting further expansion in the luxury space. Accor has said that luxury “which is always getting a larger share of the pipeline” accounts for 40 percent of the pipeline (as of third quarter 2022 earnings), having grown from 25 percent of the pipeline four years ago.
In addition to luxury, the other great whitespace opportunity is in midscale or premium economy.
Market share analysis of the branded hotel room supply by chain scale shows that whilst upper upscale, upscale, and upper midscale segments are largely saturated, with the major hotel brands already having 90% market share, it is the luxury, midscale, and economy segments which offer the greatest whitespace opportunity for share gains.
In recent months, we have seen a flurry of new brand launches in these opportunistic segments.
In the midscale/premium economy space, which Dimitris Manikis of Wyndham Hotels has called “a segment too important to ignore”, many hotel chains have launched their first conversion brand in this segment such as Hilton with its new conversion brand Spark. Chris Nassetta, CEO of Hilton has said that “Premium economy represents a large and growing segment of travelers, totaling nearly 70 million annually in the
Here are the top stories from the Daily Lodging Report newsletter in the past week. Get news on hotel deals, development, stocks, and career moves. Sign up here now.
From today’s Daily Lodging Report newsletter: Nikkei Asia published an article on Hilton planning to expand its luxury offerings in Asia. Hilton will be bringing its Waldorf Astoria brand to Malaysia, Vietnam, India, and other countries for the first time as part of its plans to open 25 new luxury hotels in the Asia Pacific region over the next few years. That’s up from the 33 luxury hotels it currently runs in the Asia Pacific.
Accor, the Paris-based hotel giant, said on Tuesday that Omer Acar will head its brands Raffles & Orient Express as of March 1. Acar will join Accor’s other brand CEOs in its luxury and lifestyle group (Fairmont, Sofitel & MGallery, and Ennismore) — all of whom report directly to group CEO Sébastian Bazin.
Many travelers have been thinking of their wellness more holistically since the pandemic, according to surveys in seven countries commissioned by Hilton Hotels and released on Monday.
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.
The formula for luxury hotels has typically had two key ingredients. First, choose locations in the districts where the elite live. Second, focus on high-touch services encouraging guests to linger, and spend, at the property.
InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) said on Monday that it had added Iberostar Hotels & Resorts as a new brand through a 30-year licensing deal that lets IHG market the all-inclusive hotels and resorts. “Up to 70 hotels,” equal to about 24,300 rooms, will become bookable through IHG’s website and app under the Iberostar Beachfront Resorts brand — the 18th IHG brand.
Top Hyatt executives said on Tuesday they planned to create hotels and resorts in two destinations on Mexico’s Caribbean coast — Tulum and Isla Mujeres — with about 5,000 rooms together.
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.
While the tech sector faces the blues, the travel sector is still moving in a positive direction. You can see this in the last month of earnings reports, as well as from exclusive Skift Research surveys. Although not fully recovered completely, the travel industry gained substantial momentum at the start of the year. All regions have almost recovered from the pandemic blues, Asia Pacific being the only exception. But with loosening travel restrictions and China reopening, we expect a stronger travel industry to be less uneven this year.
Meliá Hotels International is Spain’s largest hotel and resort operator, aiming to grow its portfolio across the Mediterranean, the Caribbean, and Asia Pacific by 40 percent in the next three years. The Mallorca-based company, controlled by the Escarrer family, is open to selling a stake to a world player like Hyatt or Marriott. But its strategy in recent years could set it up to go it alone for much longer.
Marriott International said on Friday it had received an okay from Mexico’s competition watchdog for its acquisition of the City Express brand portfolio from Hoteles City Express. The news clears the path for the $100 million deal, first announced in October, and which may now close before June.