Hilton Says It Will Build New Brands Again — Owners Will Want to See the Math
Photo Credit: Tempo by Hilton Nashville Midtown Bar Hilton
Skift Take
A trademark and a domain suggest that a new Hilton lifestyle brand called Tortoise may be in the works. But the bigger question for the newish chief development officer is whether Hilton's model still mints the best returns for owners.
Hilton had mostly quit building truly new hotel brands from scratch, preferring to buy (Graduate, NoMad) or borrow (a deal with Yotel). Since the pandemic, it added only one new-build brand, LivSmart Studios, and one brand for lightly converting existing hotels, Spark. But that's changing.
"There'll be other organic brand launches that you'll be seeing from us in short order," said Christian Charnaux, who returned to Hilton as chief development officer last July, in an exclusive interview.
The brands will be part of CEO Chris Nassetta's target for a broader portfolio of over 30 brands. Charnaux helped develop Home2, Tempo, and Motto for Hilton before leaving in 2018.
In March, Nassetta told McKinsey that the company had "five or six more brands in gestation."
Charnaux wouldn't discuss details of future brand launches, but said they would include organic, "purpose-built" brands, not just more collections of independent properties
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