Asian hotels lead Starwood Q1 performance
Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide experienced a slight drop in net profits in the first quarter of 2011. Despite this downturn however, the New York state-based hotel company saw some positive trends among its hotels, with hotels in the Asia Pacific region performing especially well in the first three months of the year.
While net profits dropped 6.7% year-on-year to US$28 million in the January-March quarter, Starwood achieved a global 10.4% increase in revenue per available room (revPAR), when measured in local currencies. The Asia Pacific region contributed the most significant revPAR gains, with year-on-year growth of 17.7%, compared to an increase of 16.7% in Latin America, 11.1% in North America, and 7.0% in Europe. Starwood’s hotels in Africa and the Middle East experienced a 4.2% decline in revPAR. In terms of brand, the recently-launched Aloft hotels achieved a 24.9% increase in revPAR, followed by W Hotels (+16.7%) and St Regis/Luxury Collection (+13.5%). The company generated US$177 million in management and franchise fees during the quarter – up 15.7% year-on-year.
Starwood’s CEO, Frits van Paasschen, said that he remains optimistic about the company’s long-term prospects. “We were able to exceed expectations despite turmoil in North Africa and the Middle East and the devastating earthquake in Japan. This is thanks to our laser-focus on growing faster than the market and flowing this outperformance down to the bottom-line,” van Paasschen said. “The outlook for the rest of the year looks promising as we view the events of the past few months as not having derailed the overall global economic recovery. For example, our group and transient bookings remain robust. As such, we remain cautiously confident for 2011 and are bullish about our long-term prospects.”
During the quarter, Starwood added 21 hotels and resorts to its portfolio, representing approximately 5,200 rooms. These included the 471-room Sheraton Shanghai Hotel and the 237-room W Bali (pictured). Eleven properties, representing approximately 3,400 rooms, were removed from the system during the three-month period.
Comments are closed.