After its launch in 2019, Atwell Suites has come into its own, providing accommodations for the modern traveler and finding particular traction in a region the brand's parent company, IHG Hotels & Resorts, is continuing to expand in: China.
This year is IHG's 50th anniversary of doing business in China, and last fall it celebrated its 800th hotel in the country with 13 of IHG's brands represented across 200 cities in China. The company has more than 500 hotels in the pipeline, per CoStar data.
The first batch of Chinese locations for the brand will be Atwell Suites Hangzhou West Lake, Atwell Suites Shenzhen Nanshan and Atwell Suites Shanghai Wuning — all of which will open this year.
New brand for a new traveler
As one of IHG's newer brands, Atwell Suites set out to capture the business of the growing population of younger travelers looking for flexibility and personality in their longer stays, said Karen Gilbride, global vice president of Avid Hotels, Atwell Suites and Garner Hotels for IHG Hotels & Resorts.
"We launched Atwell Suites in 2019 to serve that guest we call 'the opportunity seeker,'" she said.
Flexibility is the name of the game for Atwell, and Gilbride said that's from both the owners' and the guests' perspectives. Whether visitors are staying for one or two nights or four to six, each suite has space for living and working, as well as a small kitchenette.
Atwell's common space is designed with this traveler in mind, too.
"The public spaces feel like areas where I would want to be when I don't want to be in the suite," Gilbride said. "In the lobby areas, [Atwell] takes a lot of design styles from coffee shops and coworking spaces — guests were telling us they were spaces that they liked."
For Atwell owners, design is flexible, too. In the mornings, the common space hosts complimentary breakfast, but in the evenings, this space converts to a paid bar area with light bites and beer, wine and ready-to-drink cocktails on the menu.
"That's super efficient for them to be able to deliver," Gilbride said. "I don't need a mixologist in order to do that, but I can solve the consumer need."
The suites themselves have module pieces that can fit new builds and conversions alike, which Gilbride said has been an unexpected opportunity for the young brand.
"We developed the brand to be new construction led because that is what owners were looking to do from a financing perspective," Gilbride said, adding that the first Atwell Suites to open ended up being an adaptive reuse of a building.
"We were able to really quickly see that the design elements, the components, the building box of the hotel could work in a lot of different constructs," she said.
At this point, Gilbride said they are looking at about an equal amount of new builds and conversion opportunities.
From idea to execution
Atwell made its debut right ahead of the pandemic, but instead of derailing the brand's development, it proved out the thesis for the brand, Gilbride said.
"I don't think any of us could have predicted what we were going into at that time. But what I will say is the hotels that we opened during the pandemic and since have been very successful because I think that we saw a lot of these trends that really do facilitate the offer of Atwell Suites, such as 'bleisure travel,'" she said.
In 2022, Atwell Suites Miami Brickell opened as a dual concept with IHG's Hotel Indigo, which opened a few years before. The original plan was to have apartments at the top of the building above Hotel Indigo, but Gilbride said the owner saw a market opportunity for an Atwell to take over that space.
Since then, Atwell has opened five more locations in Denver; Henderson, Nevada; Kansas City, Missouri; Fort Worth, Texas; and Austin, Texas, which is the only other conversion property.
The pipeline includes another 50 locations, including the three Chinese properties.
Outlook for China
IHG is not alone in feeling bullish on China — Hilton and Marriott International have over 800 and more than 500 hotels in their respective pipelines, according to CoStar data. However, anyone watching the news and witnessing the developing trade war U.S. President Donald Trump is waging with his tariffs on Chinese goods might wonder if growth opportunities will wane.
For Gilbride, it's all about staying on top of the evolving landscape.
"What we're doing within IHG is making sure that we are staying as close across all of our different teams to what's going on, whether it be from an economic perspective, political perspective or a travel perspective ... because it is dynamic and changing," she said.
"I think also staying very connected to our owners [is important] too because they are also operating and building hotels and looking to continue to grow. I think we do still see a lot of demand within the space," she continued.
Specifically, Gilbride pointed to China's growth of its middle class and retiring population — both with the means and interest in traveling domestically.
"Over the past five decades, this market has provided us with tremendous opportunities for growth, while also witnessing the region’s economic boom," Daniel Aylmer, CEO of IHG Greater China, said in a news release about growth in the country. "With the surge in domestic and inbound tourism, we see an even more exciting future in the region."