Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc. plans to expand its hotel portfolio in Mexico by 30 percent. With the addition of eight new hotels in the pipeline and nearly 1,100 rooms, Starwood will have 24 hotels and a total of 4,800 rooms in Mexico.
“Mexico has been a central part of our strategy in the Americas for many years, and we are pleased to see an upswing in the country as U.S. tourists return and business travel picks up,” says Frits van Paasschen, president and CEO of Starwood Hotels & Resorts. “We are seeing strong demand for new hotel development across all of our brands and have the largest pipeline we have had in the country since before the global economic crisis.”
Starwood currently has eight luxury hotels in Mexico⎯⎯more than in any other Latin American market⎯⎯between its St. Regis, W, and the Luxury Collection brands. The company will expand its luxury portfolio in the country by 50 percent over the next three years to meet increasing demand.
Hotels under development include W Santa Fe, W Retreat Kanai Riviera Maya, the St. Regis Kanai Riviera Maya, and Frida Kahlo Guadalajara, a Luxury Collection hotel debuting in the city.
“Starwood is ideally positioned to take advantage of positive trends given our robust and growing footprint in Mexico where we have been present for more than 40 years,” says Osvaldo Librizzi, co-president of Starwood Hotels & Resorts Americas. “Mexico will continue to be a focal point of our expansion strategy in Latin America where we are on track to have 100 hotels in operation and development by the end of 2013.”
In the next three years, Starwood will open four specialty-select brand hotels⎯⎯including two new Aloft hotels in Merida and Guadalajara and two Four Points by Sheraton hotels in Queretaro and Cancun.
