What are the common owner types for Golden Tulip: mainly high net-worth individuals, or institutional investors?
It is a combination. Definitely in Europe we have the traditional hotel-owning families, where the hotel has been in the family for maybe three or four generations. But in the newer economies you definitely see the hotels are mainly owned by the institutions and funds. What do you look for in an owner? The most important characteristic for owners and hotel companies, starting at square one, is understanding each other’s business. They need to know the objectives of both companies, and focus on the overlap, but also understand what is not within the overlap. I like to approach the hotel business from a financial model, and a return on investment point of view, because otherwise it simply does not make sense. A hotel operation needs to be able to sustain its own life based on the economies of its producers. We are not interested in acquisitions or running hotels where we are not able to calculate the returns on investment – that is vital. We know what the different owners are expecting b
