Kempinski will focus on international expansion as part of its strategic planning.

The oldest luxury hotel chain in Europe expects to have more than 100 luxury hotels in operation around the globe by 2021.

In the next 12 months alone, nine new hotels with a total of 1,961 rooms and suites will open their doors: three of them in the Caribbean and one hotel in Tel Aviv, Tbilisi, Bangkok, Guangzhou, Brazzaville and Almaty respectively.

A further seven hotels with 2,404 rooms are currently under construction.

In addition, the Kempinski Hotels portfolio will be complemented by a hotel in New York for the first time in the company’s 122-year history.

The latter is part of a strategic partnership signed a few days ago with the 12.18. Investment Group, which will develop and open 20 7Pines Kempinski Hotels together before 2022.

The initiator of this agreement was Carsten Rath, chairman of the advisory board of 12.18. and former Kempinski manager, who made this partnership possible.

The strategic orientation of the Kempinski Group’s expansion in the future will not only be based on management contracts, but the acquisition of hotel properties is also planned.

In particular, properties that may be extensively renovated and then repositioned under the group’s own brands will be favoured.

To date, Kempinski is purely a hotel operator - only the famous deluxe hotel on Maximillianstrasse in Munich, the Hotel Vier Jahreszeiten Kempinski, is owned by the company.

“By acquiring real estate, we benefit from the increase in value instead of paying money for management contracts,” said Martin Smura, chief executive of Kempinski.

“We have set ourselves ambitious goals to expand the portfolio of Kempinski Hotels with additional flagship hotels.

“This selective growth is focused on acquiring highly regarded hotels that will make a valuable contribution to our brand.

“We therefore select only those hotels that meet our brand values and thus the highest quality standards of our guests.”