Nine of the ten names that appear in the top of the best hotel companies in the world belong to American chains, as revealed by the ranking recently published by MKG Hospitality. In the list, led by Intercontinental Hotels Group (IHG), only the French group Accor does not have its origins in the North American country.
The report also reveals that in 2011 there are already four companies that exceed the figure of 600,000 rooms in their business portfolio; an achievement that is attributed to the ability to properly franchise accommodation offers.
For Daniel Suarez Ayala, hotel consultant and director of Hotelworld Consulting, "a good part of the large groups described here have concentrated mainly on the renewal of their standards, offers and business concepts, especially in mature markets such as North America and Western Europe. Once this process of restructuring and internal re-definition is concluded, it is possible that "emerging" markets, with still insufficient hotel infrastructure, such as Brazil, China, Russia and India, will once again be a priority."
Now, in terms of the best positioned commercial brands we find Best Western, of the Best Western group, with 4,015 hotels for a total of 307,155 rooms; Holiday Inn of Intercontinental Hotels group, with 1,247 hotels and 230,117 rooms and, in the third position, marriott Hotels Resorts, of Marriott International with 554 establishments registering a total of 204,019 rooms.
But this growth is not part of an atypical process and it is possible that it will continue to occur with even more significant changes. According to Georges Panayotis, president of MKG Hospitality, the economic crisis has given more weight to the value of brands and it is there that chains have taken advantage to expand their fleet. "We can expect that in the coming months and years there will be more profound changes as a result of new partnerships that already began at the end of the previous year with the integration of Tryp Hotels into Wyndham Hotels Group."
Finally, MKG Hospitality, highlights the dynamic growth of the Ibis and Mercure brands of the Accor group with an increase in rooms, compared to the previous year, of 5.4% and 5.2%; IHG's Crowne Plaza Hotels & Resorts, up 5.1%, and Hilton's Hampton Inn, whose room number was up 4.1% over the past twelve months.
