GLOBAL REPORT—Since its change in ownership nearly two years ago, Kew Green Hotels has a new focus on development in China.
In August 2015, Chinese firm HK CTS Metropark Hotels purchased United Kingdom-based third-party management company Kew Green Hotels and its 44-hotel portfolio of 5,179 rooms for £400 million ($517.6 million). Kew Green also manages 10 additional properties located in the U.K.
Since the closing of the deal, HK CTS Hotels launched the Kew Green hotel brand with the opening of the 173-room Kew Green Hotel Wanchai Hong Kong, which opened last November as a repositioning of the Metropark Wanchai.
Stephen Woodhouse, operations director at HK CTS Hotels—who held the same position at Kew Green before the acquisition—said he will manage seven hotels in China that comprise approximately 2,000 rooms and are predominantly under the Metropark brand.
“We’re going to try one of the hotels with the Kew Green name above the door,” Woodhouse said. “Yes, it’s a new brand for China, but it shares distribution and name recognition with the Metropark brand, which is very well-known in China.”
Woodhouse said HK CTS acquired Kew Green “as a platform to get into Europe,” but he added ownership of the company has other benefits, like the opportunities that come with launching a hotel brand.
“The Kew Green hotel brand is the younger sister or brother, piggybacking off Metropark, but the feel if it is a lot more modern, younger … We will focus on profit conversion and (guest satisfaction*),” Woodhouse said. “There is mutual respect between (Kew Green and HK CTS), and we’re learning much from one another.”
HK CTS Hotels also brings a new type of ownership style to Kew Green Hotels, according to Nick O’Keeffe, director of business development at Kew Green.
“HK CTS is very different to recent Kew Green shareholders in that it is taking a longer-term view on its investment in us,” O’Keeffe said. “It is looking to build upon the existing foundations through popular destinations around the world for Chinese visitors, in such destinations as the U.K., Europe and domestic travel in China. The Hong Kong property is faring well, and we are currently working with our colleagues in China to refine the product, as they look to launch it in other Chinese markets.”
The team from HK CTS is much better positioned to know the market and what Chinese customers want, O’Keeffe said, who added Kew Green executives have spent considerable time with HK CTS’s brand team, both in the U.K. and China, to refine the concept and provide a sense of British hospitality.
“We are not actively looking for opportunities with HK CTS outside of mainland China,” O’Keeffe said. “The potential exists in China, of course, for third-party management, and I am sure it will come to the fore, eventually, once the major brands make the franchise model more readily available in China. The focus for HK CTS remains to grow its own brands—Grand Metropark, Metropark and Kew Green.”
Best of both worlds
HK CTS’s loyalty programs, website and distribution channels already have boosted online travel agency bookings to the Kew Green Hotel Wanchai Hong Kong, Woodhouse said.
“Our initial plan is to get this hotel working, embedded in, and then we’ll look at other opportunities to see where it will fit,” he said.
Woodhouse said he saw the brand as being able to work in provincial Chinese cities, not just in gateway cities. The brand’s debut in Hong Kong is a fortuitous first move, he added.
“The Hong Kong government sees tourism and hospitality as an upcoming industry they need to concentrate on, and it is an exciting market that will continue to change over the next five years,” Woodhouse said.
UK development
In addition to its development efforts in China, Kew Green Hotels still has a business to run in the U.K.
O’Keeffe said the company is focused on adding to its management platform in the U.K. through third-party management contracts as well as select investments in prime destinations such as London and Edinburgh.
“Our focus in the U.K. remains on growing our platform by working with strong brand partners, across the spectrum, from select service all the way through to upper upscale hotels,” he said. “We have a number of key markets where we have no representation, and we are working with a number of owners and investors to deliver new developments and reposition existing assets.”
O’Keeffe said Kew Green now has representation with InterContinental Hotels Group, Marriott International, AccorHotels and Hilton.
O’Keeffe added the firm will also continue working with owners on the management of large independent hotels, such as The Grand Brighton and Richmond Hill, although the focus will be on branded assets.
F&B is in Kew Green’s sights, too, with its restaurant brands Stock Burger and Cow on the Hill.
“We have a strong focus in the U.K. on enhancing our restaurants across our hotel estate,” O’Keeffe said. “We have so far launched Stock Burger Brighton and Cow on the Hill Birmingham-Bromsgrove, and there are plenty more in the pipeline.
Despite all of Kew Green’s recent successes, O’Keeffe said the company is still looking for ways to improve.
“We are having an excellent trading year, but our management team remains focused on ensuring we do not take our eye off the bottom line, what with all the additional cost pressures that our industry is facing in 2017,” he said.
*Clarification, 31 May 2017: A previous version of this story used terminology that is specific to IHG, and does not apply to all Kew Green hotels.