The Rezidor Hotel Group announces yet another record year of openings: In 2009, one of the fastest growing hotel companies worldwide brought 36 hotels with 7,100 rooms into operation across Europe, Middle East and Africa – and created a total of 4,000 new jobs in these properties. With these numbers Rezidor was even able to surpass 2008 – with 33 openings with 6,500 rooms the group’s record year so far. And looking at 2007–2009, Rezidor notes an impressive 41% cumulative growth in rooms in operation.

“We are proud to have achieved these results together with our owners and developers”, comments Kurt Ritter, President & CEO of Rezidor. “2009 has been a challenging year, but even in tough times Rezidor believes in growth”, continues Ritter. Hereby the Brussels-based group especially focuses on fee-based contracts (87% of all opened hotels in 2009), and on a business development in emerging markets like Africa and Russia/CIS where Rezidor is the leading international player on the hospitality market.

A diversification of the portfolio is a further part of Rezidor’s success – already being Europe’s leading Airport Hotel Operator, the group grew the number of airport hotel rooms in operation by 8% in 2009 and opened flagships like the Radisson Blu Hotel, Hamburg Airport (Germany) which is located directly opposite the terminals. The growth of resort rooms in operation even reached 30% in 2009 – Rezidor welcomed the first guests in new and leading spa resorts like the Radisson Blu Resort & Spa Dubrovnik (Croatia), the Radisson Blu Resort & Spa Cesme (Turkey) and the Radisson Blu Resort & Thalasso Monastir (Tunisia).

“Highlights in 2009 also saw the launch of our dynamic mid-market brand Park Inn in the Middle East where we opened the Park Inn Al Khobar (Saudi Arabia) and the Park Inn Muscat (Oman)”, says Kurt Ritter. Rezidor’s very first Park Inn hotel opened in early 2003 in Berlin (Germany) only – within six years the portfolio has reached more than 130 properties in operation and under development with a total of more than 24,500 rooms.

Rezidor also brought a completely new brand to the hospitality market: In June 2009, the company celebrated the opening of the first Hotel Missoni – a new luxury lifestyle brand developed in cooperation with the iconic Italian fashion house of the same name. Hotel Missoni successfully debuted in Edinburgh (Scotland); the brand’s future locations feature Kuwait, South Africa, Oman and Brazil.