As a Starwood hotel specialist, SPG Professional, Starwood stock holder and a Business partner to Starwood Hotels and Resorts worldwide, inc I felt the urge to share some facts.
Many articles have been circuiting online and on social media outlets in past few weeks about Starwood hotels and resorts worldwide,inc being sold off to Hyatt, IHG or the Chineese. Ironically through all this media frenzy the company From January through October opened 78 new hotels, with over 14,000 new rooms added to their system; that is 47% ahead of last year's newly added rooms for the same time period.
Year-to-date through the end of the third quarter, September 30, they have signed 141 new hotel deals representing 29,000 rooms. That's a 26% increase in hotel signings and a 33% increase in hotel rooms signed up compared to the signings during the same time period in 2014.
From a stock point of view, investors with Starwood were pleased to see the starwood stock "HOT" market price increase by nine percent after the news of the Chineese or Hyatt to buy the company broke out.
Earlier this year it was IHG we heard that possibly will buy them out, yet never saw anything turn out of that. Meanwhile a new brand The Tribute portfolio was added to the Starwood collection of world class hotel brands in the past two months. They also recently reported a strong third quarter earnings that had beat expectations and are showing a bullish outlook for the future.
Currently Starwood is the largest luxury hotel supplier worldwide with St.Regis, The Luxury Collection and W hotels shaping up their luxury division. As with any business, when a company is one of the leading players in it's industry there will always be an appeal to take them over and buy them out. It is very normal business practice, especially in the hotel industry.
In most cases within hoteliers, the owner of the property is not the same entity that manages the property. Therefore for the average hotel consumer the main interest should be that Starwood continues to manage the hotels we all enjoy so much. After all the company that manages the hotel is the party that affects the experience for the guests directly.
Since all is "talk" I can only go by what the facts are so far. I am very optimistic to what the future holds for Starwood hotels and continue to choose them as the travel box international's preferred luxury hotel supplier.