PHOENIX — The acquisition of Radisson Hotel Group Americas continues to pay dividends for Choice Hotels International.
Earlier this month, Choice relaunched Radisson Individuals as an upper-upscale soft brand that will focus on full-service, boutique and independent hotels.
Indy Adenaw, senior vice president and general manager of the upscale brand division at Choice, said the company has seen how independent hotels have matured over time as the originator of soft brands with the Ascend Hotel Collection.
"[Independent hotels] have gone from being a relatively defined part of the industry to now becoming very central in how people think about travel," he said in an interview with HNN during The Lodging Conference. "We've had the opportunity to actually look at this space, grow, morph and adapt."
Choice's existing experience working with independent hotel owners will help with building up the Radisson Individuals brand, Adenaw said.
"We have built a pretty keen understanding of what they're looking for. We've built a pretty strong understanding of what customers are looking for in this space, and it just allows us to take that wealth of knowledge and really expand it into a new tier," he said.
The Radisson integration has been a "really positive experience" for Choice since its acquisition back in 2022, Adenaw said. It's been a process of finding a middle ground between what Radisson has been good at over the years and what Choice has been good at to position Radisson's brands moving forward.
"Radisson has always been exemplary in building and defining strong brands. Choice has always been really good and strong in growing a hotel system," he said. "We've had an opportunity now to look through and say, 'How do the puzzle pieces fit as a broader category?'"
The addition of Radisson Americas' upscale and upper-upscale brands, such as Radisson Blu and Radisson Individuals, rounds out Choice's offerings in those segments by providing optionality across the board.
"Now you have many different types of instruments that allow you to actually have a bigger orchestra than you had before," he said.
Bifurcation has been one of the defining words of the hotel industry this year, with upper-tier hotels generally performing well while midscale and economy hotels have seen declines in metrics such as revenue per available room.
Adenaw said this trend has reinforced Choice's push into more high-scale properties.
"From a customer or a macroeconomic perspective, this is often the tier where there's still a pretty significant amount of disposable income. We see it being spent on travel. We see that this general category is doing well across all parts of travel," he said.