Pestana earmarks €170m for 20 new hotels in Portugal, Europe, Americas
Portugal’s leading hotel group is over the next five years to invest €170 million in 20 new projects, half of them in Portugal and the rest in major cities in Europe, the US and South America, the company’s director for development announced.
In comments to Lusa, José Roquette of the Pestana Hotel Group said that €100 million had been earmarked for new hotels abroad, with the first inauguration to take place in July in Rio de Janeiro, in the Barra da Tijuca neighbourhood. Another project, in Amsterdam, is to be concluded towards the end of 2017.
In the second half of this year, meanwhile, work is to start on a new hotel in Madrid, while in 2018 the group expects to inaugurate two new units in the US: in Newark, New Jersey and in Manhattan. It is currently seeking planning permission for a hotel in Marrakesh, Morocco and for the Madrid unit of the new brand Pestana CR7, a partnership with Portugal’s football captain Cristiano Ronaldo, who plays in the Spanish capital.
In Portugal, €70 million is to be invested in 10 new hotels “around the country” from Porto through Lisbon to the Algarve, as well as in Madeira and the Azores, according to Roquette. Of these “two of three” are to be inaugurated this year and the rest for “the next three or four years”, he added.
In his comments to Lusa, the Pestana director stressed the progress the group has made over two decades, with a purely domestic presence in 1996 transformed into one in 15 countries now. By 2020 it aims to have 100 hotels all sold.
“Despite the negative economic cycle in the past five years we managed to realise 11 new projects,” Roquette noted, citing “ambition, focus and sustainability” as three big “success factors” in the group’s strategy.
For the future, the stress is on European capitals, growth in the US and “consolidation” of the group’s position in Portugal and in South America, he explained.
In Newark, a model similar to that already used in Casablanca – where Pestana runs a hotel owned by an Spanish investor – is set to be adopted. Overall, about 60% of the new projects involve properties to be owned by the group while the rest will use business models similar to that in Casablanca.
According to the annual listings of ‘Hotels Magazine’, the leading global publication for the sector, the Pestana group was in 2014 ranked 125th in the world and 31st in Europe. It is currently present in 15 countries, with 87 units with some 11,000 guest rooms and more than 7,000 staff.
Its annual turnover is around €400 million, of which 68% is generated in hotels.
BY TPN/ LUSA, IN TRAVEL · 16-06-2016