SYDNEY—It’s been a busy year of branding for Onyx Hospitality Group—or the company formerly known as Amari Hotels & Resorts.
The Bangkok-based hotel management company has reorganized its strategy (and name) around building a portfolio of 51 hotels by 2018 and expanding offshore, according to Peter Henley, president and CEO.
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Onyx expects to sign its first Amari property in India in the next few months, he said. The company has 17 properties total under management.
Luxury product Saffron Hotels Resorts and Residences, and select-service Ozo were announced in March. Onyx is building the first hotels for both new brands.
“We are developing with our own money on our own sites to try to put our money where our mouth is, but also we want to say, ‘This is what an Ozo should look like in a resort location or urban location,” Henley said during a break at the Australia, New Zealand & Pacific Hotel Industry Conference earlier this month in Sydney.
The company is building the first Saffron, which is due to open next year, in Bangkok. Patrick Schaub recently was named GM.
Jumpstart in India
India was the first target for international growth for Onyx.
“We chose very specific areas that we wanted to expand in,” Henley said. “They were the areas where we had the highest number of inbound guests to our hotels in Thailand. It’s areas where there is actually growth in those markets, where demand is actually exceeding supply, and they’re areas where my management team, my new management team, had expertise. And also they’re all kind of within a six-, seven-hour flight from Bangkok, so we can manage them all closely. India was the No. 1 market for us to start with.”
“We effectively set up a new company, (Lamba) has an interest in that new company, but we’re the principle shareholder in it,” Henley said. “It’s a joint venture to try and accelerate the growth of our presence in India. And that’s been in place now since February; we’re very enthusiastic about it.”
With one Amari deal already on the horizon, Henley is optimistic.
“You cannot do development growth—even though Delhi’s only a three- or four-hour flight away from Bangkok—you just can’t do it by flying in for two days and then going away again and then coming back in again,” he said. “You’ve got to be on the ground. So that’s what we did. … and it’s paying immediate dividends.”
Henley said they are targeting the usual suspects, India’s top six cities, but because of barriers to entry they also are looking at secondary cities such as Bangalore and Pune.
The other principle focus is southern China, he said.