U.S. hotel chains expand quickly overseas

One of many international expanstions, the JW Marriott Hotel Bogota, Colombia.

By Joe Brancatelli

Faced with a bearish market at home, where low nightly rates and miserable financial conditions have stressed overextended property owners, the major U.S. lodging chains have set their sights on faster expansion overseas. The international markets look promising because many parts of the world are under-represented with chain properties and overseas economies are expanding more rapidly than ours. Which is a long-winded way of explaining that virtually all of the hotel news involves international openings.

For example, Marriott opened a 264-room JW Marriott in Bogota, Colombia, and a 155-room Courtyard by Marriott in Bremen, Germany. (The Bremen property is carved out of the Lloyd Building, an early 20th century structure used for luggage storage by a major German shipping firm.) Meanwhile, Hilton has opened a 320-room hotel at Terminal 3 at Beijing’s Capital Airport. Radisson has opened a 201-room hotel in Indore, India. And Starwood has had a very busy week, opening resorts in Greece9-room Four Points by Sheraton hotel in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. (a 445-room Westin on the Ionian Sea) and Thailand (a 261-room Westin in Phuket) and two properties in India. The first Indian hotel is a 130-room Aloft in Chennai on the OMR, the city’s high-tech corridor. The other hotel is a conversion of the 240-room Rockwood Palace in Udaipur; the property’s new name is the Sheraton Udaipur Palace.

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