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GLOBAL LEADERS: TRENT FRASER, CHOICE HOTELS ASIA-PAC
GLOBAL LEADERS: Trent Fraser
Chief Executive Officer, Choice Hotels Asia-Pac
THE CURRENT ECONOMIC conditions have created exciting opportunities for Choice Hotels Asia-Pac to demonstrate the value of our pure-play franchise model, enhance the profitability for existing hotels, and attract new properties to the group.
Small business owners, and especially those in the travel and accommodation industries, had an incredibly tough time through the pandemic. We were grateful for the busy winter rebound, which continued through the year, but this strong growth brought its own challenges on the ground.
The Beachcomber Hotel and Resort is part of Choice Hotels’ Ascend Hotel Collection
Staffing shortages mean many hotel owners have been very hands-on in their businesses. Properties in the Choice Hotels group have the benefit of our head office team supporting their distribution strategies, pushing their brands to corporate and consortia customers, driving direct online bookings, and supporting their dayto-day operations. However, talking with independents we hear that they have struggled to plan ahead and stay on top of competitive aspects of their businesses.
The impact of inflationary pressures is looming in 2023, and there’s a lot to consider for businesses around how to adapt to meet changing corporate and leisure traveller demand.
This is opening opportunities for engagement with us, with particular interest in expanding the hotels’ client base, our revenue management services and driving profitability, and procurement savings.
The incredible rebound in 2022 has been exciting for Choice Hotels Asia-Pac, with the end of lockdowns signalling a return to normality and many opportunities to reconnect and celebrate with our franchisees
In April, the Ingot Hotel Perth, Ascend Hotel Collection won a major international Best of Choice award, recognising it as the best Ascend property globally.
In July, we signed a 15-year Master Franchise Agreement with Suba Group of Hotels in India, transferring assumed responsibility for the 58 Choice Hotels properties open and under development in India, and assigning it exclusive rights to develop the Clarion, Quality and Comfort brands in market.
Trent Fraser, Chief Executive Officer, Choice Hotels Asia-Pac
Recognising the importance of the communities within which we operate, we launched our inaugural Choice Community Sports Grants, which gave AU$12,000 in grants to sporting clubs and individual athletes across Australia and New Zealand to aid in their COVID recovery and return to competitive sports and travel. Our partnership with United boosted this program, with another AU$5,000 in fuel vouchers to get sporting clubs and athletes back on the road.
Our results throughout the year have exceeded all expectations, with significant growth in RevPAR and ADR each quarter compared to 2019 pre-pandemic numbers.
Over lockdowns, we doubled down on our marketing campaigns, promoting our brands as they were preparing for the inevitable revenge travel demand that we witnessed in our US hotels. This pro-active approach paid dividends and in Q3 2022 Asia-Pac direct online bookings were up 132% on the same quarter in 2019 –continuing the trend for previous quarters, resulting in historically high results for 2022.
The Ingot Hotel Perth won a major international Best of Choice award last year
The highlight for our team was welcoming franchisees from across Australia and New Zealand to Melbourne in August for the Choice Hotels Asia-Pac Ignite Conference. It was inspiring to have so many hoteliers together again, sharing challenges, successes, and learnings from the pandemic, and eager to learn new systems and strategies to grow their businesses.
2023 will have its own challenges, which I feel confident our group is well prepared to meet. We have a slew of new properties coming online in Thailand, New Zealand, Australia, India, and Japan, and many more in the pipeline ready to reap the benefits of being part of the Choice Hotels Asia-Pac family.
SNAPSHOT: CHOICE HOTELS ASIA-PAC
Year the company was founded: 1939
Year first hotel opened: Globally 1939; APAC 2002
Number of brands in the organisation: 5 in APAC
Current number of hotels (Globally): 7500+ hotels
Current number of hotels (Asia-Pacific): 300+ hotels
Current number of hotels (ANZP): 170 hotels
Head office locations: Rockville, Melbourne
