Hilton signing the largest deals: Survey reveals

Ibis Styles has emerged as the front-runner for the number of planned hotels in Africa, knocking back Hilton and Radisson Blu which for years have been locked in a contest for first and second place.
According to the annual Hotel Chain Development Pipeline Survey, from W Hospitality Group, Ibis Styles leads the top 10 brands list. It has 28 planned hotels, followed by Radisson Blu with 25, Mercure with 24 and Hilton slipping into fourth place with 16. Ibis Styles and Mercure’s first and third positions are due to AccorHotels mega-deal for 50 hotels in Angola.
The W Hospitality Group 2016 survey provides a comprehensive picture of hotel development across the continent – 36 hotel chains and 86 brands with more than 64,000 rooms in 365 hotels. The survey, now in its eighth year, is published ahead of the AHIF Hotel Investment Forum (AHIF), which is organised by Bench Events, and takes place in Togo on June 21-22.
While Ibis Styles leads on the number of planned hotels, the top ten rankings by number of rooms reveal a different picture. Radisson Blu leads this category with 5,693 planned rooms, Hilton is in second place with 4,851 and Ibis Styles comes in third with 3,822.
The hotel pipeline for Hilton’s core brand has reduced slightly but the Hilton Garden Inn brand shows higher growth, now at 14 hotels with 2,556 rooms. Also seeing strong growth, but from a small base, is the Fairmont brand, up 109% with 1,412 planned rooms.
Hilton is signing the largest deals, with an average of 303 rooms per hotel, closely followed by Fairmont, averaging 282 rooms, and then Movenpick. The AccorHotels deal is for a large number of relatively small hotels.
In terms of pipeline status, traditional leaders Radisson Blu and Hilton are joined in the top four rankings by AccorHotel’s Ibis Styles and Mercure. All AccorHotel’s hotels in Angola are under construction.
Due to its mega-deal in Angola, AccorHotels leads the table of planned hotels and rooms by hotel chain, rather than by brand. Hilton Worldwide comes in at second place. Carlson Rezidor shows lower growth, just 5.5% on 2015.
2015 was a bumper year for deals being signed. There was a record 121 new deals signed including the AccorHotels deal for 50 hotels in Angola. Between 2006 and 2013, 104 deals with 21,377 rooms were signed and should now be open. But for many reasons, most often a lack of finance, they are either still just on paper, or in some cases, remain unfinished.
Despite this, over the next three years there will be 47,000 new rooms in 293 hotels and the expectation of much more to come, including deals that have already been made in the first quarter of 2016.
Trevor Ward, W Hospitality Group managing director, said: “We have seen phenomenal growth in the hotel pipeline, 64,000 new rooms, almost 30% up on the previous year. Whilst the biggest story has been AccorHotels’ mega-deal in Angola, even without it, we would have seen strong growth.”