BERLIN — The role of third-party hotel management is becoming more recognized across Europe, a development that Aimbridge Hospitality EMEA is acting on.
Aimbridge EMEA operates in seven countries across Europe, said its president, David Anderson. The United Kingdom is the company's primary market with 75% of its hotels there. During the first quarter of 2025, it added 10 new hotels to its portfolio.
“We’ve had a really good start to the year even during what are difficult transactional times,” Anderson said during a video interview at the International Hospitality Investment Forum EMEA.
The company also operates in the Netherlands, Spain and Belgium, Anderson said. Spain is particularly important, as is Italy, because of all the record hotel transactions that have happened there. Since 2019, Spain has seen “incredible transactions,” most of which came through foreign investment, he added.
“What helps us is if we follow the foreign money, then it negates the lease problem that we have in some of the European countries, because a private equity company will be very happy to buy out the lease and give us a straight hotel management agreement,” he said. “So, we tend to follow the money.”
There’s a lot of money going into Italy now for hotel transactions, he added.
Aimbridge EMEA has ambitions to be in the Middle East, an area where third-party hotel management agreements are starting to mature, Anderson said.
“The notion of third-party management is gently being introduced, so it's just a question of time, really,” he said. “We'll be there one day.”
When compared to the U.S., the Middle East and Europe aren’t as competitive spaces for third-party hotel management, Anderson said. There are a handful of key third-party managers in the space, and many are focused on the United Kingdom.
Aimbridge EMEA has two teams in Europe split between the east and west, he said. That gives the company the agility to jump on an opportunity as soon as it arises, something others in the space don’t necessarily have.
The entire process that the company uses to find and evaluate potential third-party management contracts helps build trust with hotel owner-operators who are interested in focusing on ownership, Anderson said.
“We really get them to understand what we’re all about,” he said. “It’s about helping them understand the Aimbridge machine, as it were, and build that trust so that they know that we’re competent, that we’re experts at what we do, but it’s also about the relationship. If we can build a relationship, that’s key to a long, successful project on both sides.”
For more from the interview with Aimbridge Hospitality EMEA's David Anderson, watch the video embedded above.