CHOICE International Hotels is involved in talks with its new franchise partner Flag Choice Hotels about taking the Flag brand into Asia.
The two groups signed an agreement last June for Flag to take on the master franchise for Choice brands for some of its properties in Australia.
But Flag chief executive officer Rayden Crawley said now discussions were taking place about introducing Flag into Asia.
“It would be difficult for Choice to introduce any of its brands into Asia, but the Flag brand is already well known in that market so it would make sense for them to use it.
“Choice would buy the master franchise for Flag from us but there are no immediate plans,”he said.
Instead, the two groups were focusing on rebranding Flag properties under Choice brands in Australia.
Around five of the existing Flag properties will take on the five-star Clarion brand, while 120 four-star hotels will be rebranded as Quality and another 120 three-star properties will become Comfort.
Around 230 hotels, which are three-and-a-half star with restaurants will remain Flag properties, of which around 50 will be under the sub-brand Heritage.
All 500 are being switched to the Choice reservations system by the first week of April.
The rebranding programme will start from that date. There will be a big launch at the Australian Tourism Exchange in Sydney in May.