In the first quarter, Rezidor pursued its long term development strategy – focused on profitable growth through management and franchise contracts and in emerging markets. By the end of March Rezidor operated 327 hotels and 71,600 rooms in over 50 countries across Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

“Rezidor is well on the way to achieve targeted 2012 signings as well as maintain momentum of openings. Upcoming flagships such as the Radisson Blu Hotel Lusaka in Zambia, the Radisson Blu Hotel Doha in Qatar, the Park Inn London Wembley in UK, and the Park Inn by Radisson Lille in France are scheduled to join the system this year”, says Puneet Chhatwal, Executive Vice President and Chief Development Officer at Rezidor.

Following hotels opened during Q1 2012, all of them under management and franchise contracts:

Park Inn by Radisson Rosa Khutor, Russia 211 rooms
Radisson Blu Hotel Istanbul Asia, Turkey 195 rooms
Okoume Palace Hotel Libreville, Gabon 320 rooms
Radisson Blu Hotel Mersin, Turkey 246 rooms

Rezidor is one of the world’s fastest growing hotel companies and organic growth has always been a key pillar of the company’s strategy. Rezidor is today the fifth largest hotel group in Europe with Radisson Blu as the largest upscale brand as per MKG Hospitality.

Rezidor grows primarily through management and franchise contracts (while lease contracts are only considered for strategically important markets), since those agreements offer a higher profit margin and more stable income streams. These fee-based contracts also help to reduce the risk exposure and make the portfolio less volatile.

The emerging markets of Eastern Europe, Africa and the Middle East are key development regions for Rezidor – about 75% of the group’s contracted rooms are located in those markets. Rezidor operates dedicated, fully-fledged regional offices in Moscow, Dubai and Cape Town. Our local presence and expertise helps us reduce the risk of delays and cancellations that is higher in emerging markets than in mature markets.

Rezidor’s pipeline features 20,000+ managed or franchised rooms due to open within the next three to four years. It is one of the strongest pipelines in the industry, and represents ca. 30% of the current number of rooms in operation (compared with an industry average of ca. 20%). Once these rooms are operational, Rezidor’s EBITDA margin will increase by 2–2.5 percentage points, supporting the EBITDA margin target of 12% over a business cycle.

Rezidor’s overall goal is to have 400+ hotels with 100,000 rooms in operation, and further 100+ hotels and 20,000+ rooms under development, covering a total of 75 countries by 2015.