Resort management company Minor Hotel Group has acquired its 100th property amid plans to nearly double its portfolio within the next five years.
The group, which owns international brands Anantara Hotels, Resorts & Spas, Avani Hotels & Resorts, the Elewana Collection and newest acquisition Per Aquum, has pledged to expand its range to include 190 hotels by 2018.
The latest addition to the collection, announced today at World Travel Market, is the former Chedi Chiang Mai in northern Thailand, which will be rebranded as Anantara Chiang Mai Resort & Spa.
It is the latest in a spate of recent openings for the Thai hotel brand, which include its first property in Dubai, Anantara Dubai The Palm Resort & Spa, in September; the first in Cambodia, Anantara Angkor Resort & Spa, on November 1; and upcoming openings in Mozambique in December – a first venture into Africa – plus Phuket in January and Qatar in April.
The group has added 20 new properties across all of its brands this year.
Michael Marshall, senior vice-president of commercial operations for Minor Hotel Group, said: “We are expanding rapidly, which is very exciting.
“We started in Thailand and we have got a lot of hotels in key locations there, so there’s great potential for packages combining more than one resort. We wanted to make sure the 100th hotel was something important.”
The group has set its sights on growth areas in Australia, east and north Africa, the Middle East and the Indian Ocean.
Marshall added: “The brand Anantara is getting stronger and stronger so we are looking for where to expand to attract Anantara guests. We think we have that platform to expand internationally.”
He added that the group had brought on extra technology including new mobile-compliant sites and a focus on social media to aid expansion plans.
Other additions for the group include three Avani hotels in Thailand, Bali and Vietnam, and the Sand River Masai Mara which opened in Kenya in September as the eighth property in the Elewana Collection.