Embassy Suites Eyes Expansion

Hotel Interactive:

Looking to transplant an established American hotel brand into foreign markets is always challenging. Essentially it’s like launching an entirely new brand. The brand’s potential customer base in the local market has no idea as to what the flag means, and well entrenched competition has every advantage.

But over at Embassy Suites Hotels, Jim Holthouser, SVP brand management, is looking both north and south of the border as virgin territory in which to expand the brand to as many as 300 hotels by 2010. There are currently 190 Embassy’s open.

Last November, Embassy raised the flag on its first Mexico City property, and just this week it debuted the Embassy Suites by Hilton Montréal, its second Canadian property. That property is a 210 suite hotel owned by by Vancouver-based Aquilini Group Properties LP and will be managed by Pacrim Hospitality Services Inc..