BERLIN — White-label or third-party hotel management firms now are an established feature of the European hotel industry, and the growth of this type of hotel operations structure is poised to continue.
In a video interview with Hotel News Now, David Anderson, divisional president for Europe, the Middle East and Africa at Aimbridge EMEA, said the third-party management model works well with hotel owners.
“We are resourced to be able to optimize the brand performance. … The owner knows we are acting absolutely in their interest … from driving the top line and managing the [profit and loss account] very finely is second to none,” he said during a break at the International Hotel Investment Forum.
One of Aimbridge's evolving partnerships in Europe is with Georgia’s Alliance Group, and the nimbleness of both partners helped maintain the business relationship.
“We were in discussions with them three years ago when we were still in Russia. With U.S. sanctions we had to pull out of Russia, but I had a great team there that operated many hotels, so I literally pulled them into Georgia because we already had a pipeline of future hotels with Alliance,” he said.
Anderson said Europe remains a tough market.
“We have some owners still doing deals, which is great, and if we already operate their hotels well, that’s organic growth for us. Depending on how much leverage some of their owners require, the degree of difficulty is linked to that,” he said.
Like most markets around the globe, hotel deals have been slow to materialize in the region.
“Obviously for the last 18 months the deal flow’s been slow due to inflation and the difficulty of getting debt at affordable prices, but everyone is quite hopeful there are more deals, and certainly if I look at my pipeline, it is a busy pipeline,” Anderson added.
For more of Anderson’s interview, including Aimbridge’s pipeline of 25 luxury assets and partnering with private equity, please watch the video embedded above.