Hotel industry strong as global travel grows: Minor Group
Minor Hotels is to add 65 hotels with more than 13,000 rooms by 2025 as part of its plans to maintain the group’s position as the largest in the hotel hospitality industry, Dillip Rajakarier, group chief executive of MINT and chief executive of Minor Hotels, told a media gathering on Thursday.
The move is part of the company’s strategic plan for long-term growth and is aligned with the global trends in travel which, said Rajakarier, would see the hotel industry continuing to grow despite the poor state of the global economy.
MINT's outlook for 2023 is upbeat thanks to rising global travel activity, which increases the demand for hotels not only as a place to stay temporarily, but also as a place to hang out, enjoy gastronomy, celebrate a wedding, and hold occasional ceremonies.
Since the beginning of 2023, a dozen hotel brands under Minor have opened around the world, including Anatara Palazzo Naiadi Rome in Italy, NH Collection Dubai the Palm in the United Arab Emirates, and Tivoli Chengdu at Cultural Heritage Park in China.
More launches are planned for the next year and a half under the Minor eight brands, Anantara, Avani, Oaks, NH Hotels, NH Collection, Nhow Hotels, and Tivoli, with Egypt, Peru and Bahrain among the new countries that the company is entering for the first time.
Minor Hotels Group currently operates over 530 hotels with over 76,000 rooms in 56 countries.
“Prime locations and high-quality services will enable MINT to raise the room rate, covering the high operating costs,” he said, adding that, despite some low occupancy rates in the first three months of this year, the average daily rate has helped offset the costs, resulting in more revenue than for the same quarter last year.
By raising the ADR, Minor can increase revenue per available room (RevPAR) and profit margins by attracting upscale and high-end clients who are able to afford the higher rates.
Minor has also partnered with Swiss hospitality school Les Roches to set up the Asian Institute of Hospitality Management (AIHM) to train a skilled and talented workforce for the hospitality industry and thus end the labour shortage problem.
“There has long been a lack of skilled labour in the hotel industry, so we saw an urgent need to build that labour through academic expertise,” he said, adding that the AIHM programme has just been launched in Thailand and he expects students from the region to apply.
The programme meets the same standards as Les Roches in Switzerland, but is one-third of the price.
Thailand continues to be a significant market for the group, with double-digit growth, and while European tourists are declining due to the high cost of travel, Thailand can attract new customers from Russia, Ukraine, India, Saudi Arabia, and the Middle East.
He said two new hotels under the Anantara and NH Collection Hotel brands will open soon in Phuket and Chiang Mai, Thailand.
Minor Hotels reported a core loss of 1.2 billion baht this quarter due to anticipated and budgeted seasonality in the European business. However, it represented a significant improvement from a core loss of 3.7 billion baht in the first quarter of 2022 due to improved operational performance in Europe and Latin America, Thailand, and Australia.
The first quarter typically has the lowest travel seasonality, he noted, adding that MINT expects an even stronger performance through the end of this year.
