Starwood Hotels & Resorts will increase its operating hotel footprint in Latin America by 50 percent during the next five years, opening an average of seven new hotels per year in the region.
Emphasizing Latin American’s growth potential as one of the world’s fastest growing hotel and travel markets, Starwood’s CEO Frits van Paasschen and members of the company’s senior executive team visited Latin America last week, traveling to key growth markets, including Brazil and Colombia.
“Macro-economic trends continue to reshape the Latin American travel and business landscape,
creating strong growth in lodging demand and many opportunities for Starwood to expand in the region,” said Frits van Paasschen, President and CEO, Starwood Hotels & Resorts.
“At the same time, Latin America’s middle class grew by 50 percent in the last decade and this increase in wealth means that there are more and more people with the means to travel and an increasing appetite for global, luxury brands like ours.”
Frits added.
As the first international hotel company in Latin America dating back to the opening of the Sheraton Maria Isabel in Mexico City in 1963, Starwood today is the largest high end hotel operator in the region with 72 hotels in 13 countries and a total of 15,600 rooms. Since 2007, the company has grown by 36% in Latin America.