HotelChatter

Hilton Hotels

Hotel Brands Want to be Everywhere

October 22, 2007 at 9:30 AM | 1 Comment

As the world gets smaller and we start to travel to places we'd never really expected too, the market for big hotel brands like Hilton or InterContinental just gets bigger and bigger. It's a bit like eating at a well-known fast food chain: if you're traveling in a foreign country and see a familiar hotel brand from home, you'll know what to expect when you stay there.

An NY Times article over the weekend put it this way: hotels are global explorers. If they're everywhere, they reason, we'll see them, known them, and check into them. That's why the Hilton chain just announced a plan to open 25 of its Hampton and Garden Inn hotels across Russia and Eastern Europe, and why Holiday Inn has already managed to become the top hotel brand in China, with 44 hotels already there and another 43 in the planning.

And it's not just western brands that are attacking the globe. Indian hotel group Taj Hotel Resorts might have started off in Mumbai but it now boasts hotels in 18 countries, including 3 in the US. Surely it's just a matter of time before some Chinese conglomerate does the same and we'll be able to check into a Great Wall Hotel in our very own neighborhood. (You heard it here first).

[Photo: angrydicemoose]

Related Stories:
· Hotels As Global Explorers [NY Times]