Huazhu Group Limited
(former China Lodging Group)
By Morgan Brady
华住集团有限公司
（原华住酒店集团）
华住集团有限公司是中国领先且发展迅速的多品牌酒店集团。华住集团有限公司是中国领先的酒店运营商和特许经营商。截至2019年3月底，公司共有4,396家酒店投入运营，客房超过430,000间，相比2018年第一季度末增长了15％，总营业额为人民币72亿元，比上一年增长了17％ 。
原华住酒店集团的品牌主要集中在经济型和中档酒店市场，业务包括租赁和拥有，管理和特许经营模式。而他们今年的三个重点领域是：
- 首先，加速酒店的扩张
- 其次，专注于技术应用创新，改善客户体验和运营效率
- 第三，战略部署高端细分市场
华住将在未来几个月为高端市场推出一个新的软性品牌Madison。通过加速战略，预计2019年将开设300至400家新的软性品牌酒店，而2018年的净开业数量为100家。
另外，华住与光大阿什莫尔投资之间的新合作伙伴关系有一系列举措，收购上海浦东陆家嘴金融区附近一家酒店，宣布新“安住”基金成为中国第一家酒店和住宅房地产私募股权投资工具，并投入第一个项目-上海明雅酒店改造和重启。
随着酒店业的收益率继续增加，该公司开始转向固定资产投资。
China Lodging Group, Limited, leading and fast-growing multi-brand hotel group in China, changed its name to Huazhu Group Limited, onJune 1st, 2018.
Huazhu Group Limited represents a leading hotel franchisor and operator in China. The Company had 4,396 hotels in operation at the end of March 2019, with more than 430,000 rooms, an increase of 15% from the end of Q1 2018, and a total turnover of RMB7.2 billion, an increase of 17% from a year ago.
With its primary focus on the economy and midscale hotel segments, China Lodging Group's brands include Hi Inn, HanTing Hotel, Elan Hotel, HanTing Premium Hotel, JI Hotel, Starway Hotel, Joya Hotel, VUE Hotel, Crystal Orange Hotel, Orange Hotel Select, Orange Hotel and Manxin Hotel.
The Company also has the rights as a master franchisee for Mercure, Ibis and Ibis Styles, and co-development rights for Grand Mercure and Novotel, in the Pan-China region.
The Company's business includes leased and owned, manachised and franchised models. Under the lease and ownership model, the Company directly operates hotels typically located on leased or owned properties. Under the manachise model, the Company manages manachised hotels through the on-site hotel managers, it appoints and collects fees from franchisees. Under the franchise model, the Company provides training, reservation and support services to the franchised hotels and collects fees from franchisees, but does not appoint on-site hotel managers. The Company applies a consistent standard and platform across all of its hotels.
Their three focus areas this year are:
- First, acceleration of the expansion of hotel network
- Secondly, focus on the Innovative Technology Applications to improve the guest’s experience and operational efficiency
- The third is the strategic deployment in the upscale segment
Huazhu has three soft brands including Hi Inn, Elan and Starway covering the economy upto the Midfield segment. In addition, they are going to introduce a new soft brand Madison in the next few months for the upscale segment. With the acceleration strategy, they now expect smaller hotels and make it more flexible and affordable for hotel owners to join Huazhu and benefit from their operational excellence. They expect to open 300 to 400 new soft brand hotels in 2019, compared with that 100 net openings in 2018.
Huazhu has opened Blossom Hill, the first urban hotel in Beijing Hou Hai in March 2019. It is a conversion from VUE hotel. The price range is between RMB1,000 to RMB1,500 per room night.
They have more than 80% of their hotels under the franchised and management model and which is reasonably stable compared with higher levels in the lease model. So they believe this mix will also cut quite resilient through the different economic cycles. They operate a bit less than 20% of their hotel rooms under lease and ownership model.
The new partnership between Huazhu and Everbright Ashmore Investments is seen as a move by the mainland hotel operator, which ranked as the world’s fourth most valuable hospitality group, to go beyond management into owning hotel assets.
At the same time that Huazhu and its investment partner announced the fund, they also unveiled their first acquisition, a 352 room hotel near Shanghai’s Lujiazui financial district in Pudong.
Huazhu and Everbright Ashmore have declared their new “Anzhu” fund to be China’s first hotel and residential property private equity investment vehicle, and say that the management will follow a value-add strategy under which they acquire assets with high levels of potential before repositioning and upgrading them.
Huazhu founder Ji Qi is moving into the fund management business
The partnership’s first project, Minya Hotel Shanghai, is a 23-story property located at 500 Gushan Road, about 30 minutes’ drive from the Pudong International Airport and around one kilometre from the North Yangjing Road metro station on line six. The Anzhu fund will complete its makeover of the hotel and relaunch the property in the second half of this year, and their vision is to optimize the room size of the 352-unit hotel and convert some of the “low-efficiency” areas into office space to maximize potential returns.
Huazhu and Everbright Ashmore have teamed up to upgrade the Mingya Hotel Shanghai in Pudong
It seems the company is turning to fixed asset investment as yields on hospitality properties continue to increase.
