At the WorldHotels Annual Conference last month, held at the Eden Roc Miami Beach, a member of the brand’s Elite collection, Larry Cuculic, president/CEO, BWH Hotels, called the soft brand the parent company’s “North Star.”
He added, “Every hotel throughout our portfolio should be focused on service and quality like WorldHotels are,” and told the audience, “You are our shining example, and we need your hotels to lead us.”
The theme of the event was “Going Beyond,” and Ron Pohl, president, international operations, BWH Hotels and president, WorldHotels, urged the audience to “go beyond the previous thinking of what it takes to be successful and understand what success looks like today—and in the next three to five years. We must challenge ourselves to go beyond each and every day.”
He shared that the brand added 21 hotels last year, including properties in new markets in Brazil, Greece, Mexico, Spain and Canada. He’s optimistic that 2024 will bring even more into the fold.
“ We’re projecting to add 30 to 40 hotels in 2024,” he said from the Pompeii Ballroom stage, where luminaries such as Frank Sinatra, Harry Belafonte and Tony Bennett once stood. “We’ve already signed five deals in the first month. Our newest member is the 1,300-plus-room Caribe Royale Resort in Orlando.”
Many WorldHotels properties use Medallia for guest feedback, and Pohl said they recorded the “highest customer satisfaction ratings since we’ve purchased WorldHotels, at nearly 84%.”
Still, the company is looking for more insights from guests. “We are launching a modified survey that is simple for the customer, but at the same time provides you more actionable and strategic information for your property to review and create action,” he said.
Technology will also be at the forefront for WorldHotels in the coming years.
“Our CRM [customer relationship management]capabilities must evolve and improve to meet the demands of the new luxury traveler, and we’re investing heavily in that,” Pohl noted. “Amazon and similar brands have set different expectations for our customers. They know everything about their customers. Similarly, for us to offer a more personalized experience, we must use that guest data for repeat guests to meet their expectations. They expect we will already know that.”
He continued, “We’re committed to improving the capabilities by not only enhancing the guest experience but simplifying processes for hotels. We’ve rolled out a new revenue management platform, and the use of our data lake allows us to create tools and resources almost endlessly. And we’re working with AWS to expand these capabilities further.”
Worldy insights
Cuculic and Pohl, along with the global leaders of WorldHotels, participated in a media press conference to discuss the current and future plans of both the brand and its parent company.
The BWH Hotels CEO touched on two headwinds facing the industry, particularly in North America, and how they affect the company and its development plans.
“Financing is challenging right now because of the high interest rates for new construction,” he said. “We’re nonetheless focused on new construction for our new extended-stay product, @Home, and we are highly incentivizing our members and anyone who wishes to be an early adopter of that new brand.”
On construction costs, he noted, “We think that we have a huge opportunity in the conversion cycle for at least the next year. Best Western is a strong conversion brand, but that also applies to WorldHotels. I think everyone believes that the federal government will lower interest rates two or three times next year, allowing new construction to come back to the forefront of development. But, in the meantime, we’re a very strong conversion and soft-brand company, and I think that will play to our advantage in 2024.”
The four WorldHotels leaders—Richard Rehwaldt, VP, Latin America, BWH Hotels; Gregory Habeeb, chief development officer, WorldHotels, North America; Wytze Van den Berg, VP, Europe, Middle East & Africa (EMEA), WorldHotels; and Rod Munro, managing director, Australasia, BWH Hotels—then discussed development in each of their regions.
“[In Latin America,] we see the biggest growth potential for WorldHotels in the conversion market, and in that segment, we have the bigger opportunities in WorldHotels Crafted, which is our boutique brand,” said Rehwaldt. “In most of the markets we prospect, the bigger luxury projects are mostly branded, so we’re seeing that the independents that are available in these markets are usually the smaller, boutique-style hotels. The expectation is that we will grow by at least five WorldHotels in Latin America this year.”
In North America, Habeeb noted, conversions to WorldHotels Luxury and Elite, the brand’s top two tiers, have been sought after, as well as Crafted “because there’s been an explosion of lifestyle hotels. A lot of the lifestyle hotels are looking to come to a soft brand that provides all the benefits and services of a larger company, but yet keeps their own identity and storytelling.” He added that the region is also popular with reflagging to a WorldHotel from another company’s soft brand.
Pohl interjected, “To become a WorldHotels property does not necessarily require large capital investment. It’s really about rebranding and allowing them to tell their story and leverage our technology, marketing and sales platforms because they’re already great hotels.”
“In Europe,” Van den Berg said, “we only added two new-construction WorldHotels last year, and all the others were conversions. It’s a conversion market, but we have signed one new-construction project in Amsterdam so far this year. In the Middle East and Africa, especially in countries like Saudi Arabia, Kenya and Ethiopia, you see more new construction coming in. In the more mature Middle East markets like Dubai, it’s more conversions.”
Conversions are also very big in Asia-Pacific, as well. “We’re looking at 90% of our pipeline coming through the conversion channel,” Munro said. “Vietnam is probably the exception to the conversion rule—it’s new-builds there at the moment. In Australia, there are also opportunities coming through the conversion channel.”
Cuculic was asked about the company’s balance sheet. Earlier in the day, he said it was the “strongest balance sheet in our history.”
“One of our strategic goals was to have a net asset coverage ratio that was foolproof with regard to anything that could happen in the future because you never know [what could happen],” he said. “And we are not looking for any inorganic growth or acquisition. We’re going to grow organically and focus on the brands that we have that we can be very successful with—like WorldHotels.”
Ultimately, the plan is to expand the WorldHotels footprint to 400 or 500 hotels, “where it used to be, with quality products in great locations,” noted Pohl, adding, “I don’t want that to be confused with quantity. It has to be quality hotels, and it takes us longer, that’s perfectly fine. We’re going to add assets that don’t affect existing Best Western or WorldHotels members and in markets where we think the customer is looking to have that unique experience.”
