STAMFORD, Connecticut—W Hotels intends to expand its global footprint by the end of the decade and plans to open new hotels and renovate current properties in North America, focusing on the U.S.
Anthony Ingham, global brand leader for W Hotels Worldwide, a Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide luxury brand, said the brand currently has 46 hotels around the world and he anticipates there will be a total of 70 W Hotels properties internationally by 2020.
W Hotels’ pipeline
W Amsterdam just opened in October 2015, and Ingham said four more hotels will open in 2016, totaling five hotels for 2015-2016.
“This year we have five openings, which is a lot for W,” he said. “I can’t even remember a year where W had five openings in recent history.”
W Punta de Mita in Riviera Nayarit, Mexico is slated to open in May; W Retreat & Spa Goa in India is scheduled to open in June; W Dubai Al Habtoor City in the United Arab Emirates is slated for summer 2016; and W Tel Aviv-Jaffa in Israel is slated to be completed in November.
In 2017, Ingham said the brand is expected to have eight or nine openings, including W Las Vegas, W Philadelphia and W Madrid.
W’s focus on North America, U.S.
Going forward in 2016 and beyond, Ingham said W Hotels plans to renovate existing properties in North America, especially in the United States, and develop new-build properties in the North American region.
“We’re focusing a lot of effort on North America in terms of getting new-build W deals done,” Ingham said. “There was a little bit of a pause in the development of new-build Ws, and the last one to open in North America was in 2010, which was W Austin.”
W Hotels had a number of hotel openings in North America in 2009 and 2010, but with the brand’s focus on international growth, Ingham said new builds in North America slowed down for several years. The brand plans to refresh the W pipeline in the U.S., according to Ingham.
“The design and even the positioning evolution of W has moved so fast that hotels that were built and designed 10 years ago—which is the majority of our (properties) in the U.S.—have a different kind of feeling from the hotels that have opened since,” he said. “We have six new builds underway in the U.S. right now, and our goal is to have 10 new-build Ws in the U.S. either open or certainly under construction by 2020.”
Since the original U.S. W Hotels property opened around 2000, Ingham said the brand is looking at that existing portfolio of hotels to either renovate the properties or rebrand them into other Starwood brands because many of the older W Hotels no longer fit the brand’s image.
The W Chicago Lakeshore recently underwent a $40-million renovation to remain a W hotel, and the W New Orleans was converted to a Le Méridien last year, according to Ingham.
The future of the brand
Each W Hotels property has a different design vibe that matches the fashion, music and food scene in the specific location of that hotel, which is something millennials often look for when it comes to booking a room. Ingham said this shift in consumer behavior has worked in the brand’s favor.
“I think from a product and positioning point of view, the great thing that has worked in our favor is that W for the best part of 10 years now has been focused on creating very individual, locally influenced, locally inspired design in our hotels,” Ingham said. “That is the way that W has been built for the last 10 years and it has some real tailwinds behind it because there’s a shift in consumer behavior where consistency of brands and that cookie-cutter experience is becoming less important.
“And having really genuine, locally inspired authentic brand experiences that really reflect each destination and give the (experience) of what is making that destination special is getting more and more attractive.”
Ingham said he expects W Hotels will expand its international portfolio in the future.
“I see the brand becoming even more international,” he said. “A portfolio of (70) hotels is large, but not huge, so I can foresee a time when W hits 100 hotels, but I don’t expect it to ever be like a mass, mass brand with hundreds and hundreds of hotels.
“There’s certainly only a number of destinations and cities around the world that are the right kind of place for a W with the right consumer group.”