The third-party hotel management space is opening up even more, and Rebel Hotel Company saw an opportunity to grow into the management of ultra-luxury hotels.
At the end of 2025, the U.S. hotel industry saw one of the first years on record outside of a recession where revenue per available room was flat to negative, said Brian Sparacino, president and CEO of Rebel, in a video interview at the NYU International Hospitality Investment Forum.
“The one segment that has been moving pretty quickly has been luxury, ultra-luxury,” he said. “It has been bucking the trend and showing a positive movement forward.”
Rebel had been approached by a few hotel owners who were looking for third-party options in this space, so the company launched Reserve Collection Resorts & Hotels.
“We saw the opportunity to align with investors who are seeking that type of solution and support and decided now or never to launch the Reserve Collection of Rebel, and it's been exciting so far,” he said.
Rebel has three distinct segments as a company. At its core, there’s Rebel, with branded and independent mostly full-service hotels. Renegade covers mostly focused-service hotels, and Reserve covers ultra-luxury hotels.
The company has a total portfolio of 36 hotels and resorts, and it expects to end the year with more than 40 properties and 5,600 rooms. Among the new and upcoming additions to its portfolio are the Circa 39 in Miami Beach, the Hotel La Jolla in San Diego and the Coachman in Lake Tahoe.
Most of the company's recent opportunities have come from real estate investors with higher-end hotel projects under development, Sparacino said. They’re just looking for the right operator.
“When you look at the pipeline of deals that transpired in 2025, there’s been a lot of luxury hotels that have been built for that purpose, because they’re seeing the same trajectory that we are, but the project size is smaller,” he said.
Instead of building 250- to 300-key luxury hotels, these investors are building smaller properties because they want some autonomy within their investment vision, Sparacino said. They don’t want to be put into an operating platform that is one-size-fits-all. These types of hotel owners want to be focused on the experience as they see it but don’t have the institutional infrastructure to pull it off.
For Rebel, that’s not a problem, Sparacino said. It’s able to go in with its team and provide the level of expertise to support the investor’s vision.
“But we're flexible, too, like we're completely going to understand what you're saying, we're going to be a partner with you, and we're not going to force you into specific programs,” he said. “We're just going to do it together and work on it as things continue to unfold.”
When it comes to Rebel’s growth strategy, scale isn’t something Sparacino is worried about. The company doesn’t have any debt, and there’s no pressure to grow to 100 or 150 hotels, he added.
“We just want to be in line with the right people,” he said. “We want to have good partnerships. We want long-lasting partnerships. If it makes sense for us, we’ll take it. If it doesn’t make sense for us, then we won’t take it. We’re not going to pressure ourselves to hit a specific number.”
As the global hotel brands move further into to the franchise space, the third-party hotel management space is opening more, Sparacino said. Even so, that requires being a good partner to the brands as they have a brand integrity piece they want to preserve.
With all the new hotel brands that have launched in recent years, that creates more opportunities for Rebel to work with owners and give them more options, he said. Independent hotels don’t work in every market, so the different brands may fit what they’re looking for and help them plug into the brand’s system.
Presenting Rebel not just as an option but their solution has been a useful strategy, he said. The company is willing to work with hotel owners on their vision, and it takes on operations based on the investment strategy.
When sitting down with hotel owners, Sparacino said he talks to them about what they want, not selling them on a long-term arrangement that may not work for them. That approach has worked well so far given the number of new management contracts that have come from existing owner relationships.
Third-party management is a crowded space, and the bigger companies are getting bigger.
“They continue to occupy space, whereas maybe the smaller companies, such as ourselves, just are that solution that’s not one-size-fits all,” he said. “We’re nimble and adaptable to whatever that investment strategy is.”
For more from Rebel's Brian Sparacino, watch the full interview above or listen via podcast: