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Hoshino Resorts is small but weighs more than it. It has only 68 hotels, but some of them make Condé Nast Traveler and Travel Leisure’s most recommended lists.
The 110-year-old company with classic hotels. Since taking over as CEO in 1991, CEO Yoshiharu Hoshino has led the company in defending Japanese hospitality in the face of a growing sea of global brand similarities.
The company has increased its real estate portfolio by 74% since 2019. He has 11 more in the pipeline. This includes the creation of hotels all over the country, not just in the most famous resorts.
The strength of the logo is revealed in the fact that “between 60 and 70 percent” of bookings under the Hoshino logo come from its website, with a percentage of direct distribution that exceeds that of global hotel groups.
“One of the reasons we’ve worked so hard to have this wonderful logo is to increase our number of direct bookings, because that’s one of the vital resources of profitability,” Hoshino said.
Hoshino Resorts’ growing prestige as an iconic national logo is one of the reasons why its CEO was named Japan’s “Master Entrepreneur of the Year” in 2022 through consulting firm EY.
Hoshino has taken opportunistic measures during the pandemic. The crisis has caused misery among many hotel operators and investors, who have called on Hoshino Resorts to take control or ownership of their properties. The company saw an exclusive possibility to claim coveted spots at discounted prices. prices.
In 2019, the company had 3,074 rooms. Since then, 4,010 rooms have been added.
Hoshino Resorts has a long-term plan to expand its presence nationwide.
“In cities and prefectures across the country, production used to be the main industry,” Hoshino said. “But we expect tourism to become much more vital in the coming years. “
Hoshino’s strategy is to scale up projects in conjunction with the Japan Development Bank. With 10 hotel projects to date, the collaboration has provided “money at risk” to help revitalization.
In September 2023, for example, Hoshino partnered with DBJ to expand a Risonare-branded luxury hotel in Shimonoseki, a city on the Kanmon waterfront whose domestic tourism industry is in need of revitalization. When the assignment opens in 2025, all rooms will have an ocean view.
This year, the company will open its Omo7 logo in Kochi, a city with a fledgling tourism sector.
One of the most intriguing questions for hoteliers outside Japan is whether Hoshino Resorts, which generated $1 billion (82. 2 billion yen) in gross transaction volume last year, would participate in a licensing partnership with a foreign hotel group.
Since more than 60% of their bookings come directly from their site, it’s not transparent for an association to generate enough direct bookings to justify the fee.
How about a “soft logo collection” where Hoshino maintains the criteria of the logo but benefits from the marketing strength of a foreign hotel group?Hoshino said he was open to “consultations” but was skeptical.
“International hotel teams try to sell their name to smaller corporations and call them a collection of comfortable logos,” Hoshino said. “This style of business is very similar to Booking. com and Expedia, where we would let our logo be registered on a foreign hotel organization’s network in exchange for a fee. This style of business can be challenging for us.
Occupancy rates and average daily rates across all of Hoshino Resort’s brands are above pre-pandemic levels. This fact illustrates the boom in Japan.
Since taking over as CEO, Hoshino has expanded his group’s portfolio to five sub-brands, targeting another market.
“We don’t need to increase the number of sub-brands we have,” he said. “These five sub-brands can satisfy the desires of as many investors and hoteliers as possible. “
Hoshino Resorts has also invested in more than 35 homes other than those operated through Hoshino Resorts’ circle of brand familiars, believing they will most likely provide sound money in the long run. For example, it owns a Grand Hyatt Fukuoka operated through Hyatt.
The parent company currently manages 42% of the homes in its branded and externally operated network, but is soon aiming for 50%.
Hoshino Resorts’ real estate investment is in the process of attempting to close an alliance with Greens, a hotel operator, and MUFG (a megabank), to expand 20 roadside hotels under the Comfort Inn logo (in cooperation with Choice Hotels International) with Greens as the controlling company and Hoshino as the owner. This would disclose businesses to the budget segment of second-tier markets locally as tourism grows in importance.
The real estate investment firm Hoshino Resorts is also in the process of taking over the 22 Chisun roadside hotels it owns and changing its logo to the Comfort Inn logo and its operations to Greens.
Over the past year, foreign money in Japan has returned to pre-pandemic levels, thanks in part to the weaker yen.
But Hoshino, like other hotel companies, is struggling to keep up with demand. The aging of the sector has created a labor shortage. Japan encourages formal education for many positions in the hospitality sector, so there would possibly be a delay in the worker incorporation procedure.
“In April we will accept 700 new workers from universities and schools across Japan,” Hoshino said. “It’s the largest organization ever accepted in a year. We don’t have the means to do them all at once, so we had to get to work artistically. “with our process.
Hoshino prefers to employ directly, however, in some medium and low-budget institutions in major cities, he has had to turn to outsourcing companies for household tasks.
It’s about finding tactics to run hotels with fewer staff, as an aging society will lead to a shortage of hard work for all Japanese businesses. Its aim is to exercise staff in multitasking, with a single staff member in charge of reception, room cleaning and service. work. It is imperative to automate as many processes as possible, such as check-in.
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Tags: CEO, Choice Hotels, Choice Hotels International, long-term accommodation, Hoshino, Hoshino Resorts, hotel development, hotel investments, Japan
Photo credit: Source: Hoshino Resorts.
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