The Kempinski Group is focusing on international expansion, with plans to have more than 100 luxury hotels in operation around the globe by 2021.

In the next 12 months alone, nine new hotels with a total of 1,961 rooms and suites will open their doors: three of them in the Caribbean and one hotel in Tel Aviv, Tbilisi, Bangkok, Guangzhou, Brazzaville and Almaty respectively. A further seven hotels with 2,404 rooms are currently under construction.

In addition, the Kempinski Hotels portfolio will be complemented by a hotel in New York for the first time in the company's 122-year history. The latter is part of a strategic partnership signed a few days ago with the 12.18. Investment Group, which will develop and open 20 7Pines Kempinski Hotels together with Kempinski until 2022. The initiator of this agreement was Carsten K. Rath, chairman of the Advisory Board of 12.18. and former Kempinski manager, who made this partnership possible. Thus, 7Pines Ibiza will reopen in spring 2020 under the name 7Pines Kempinski Ibiza, followed by another resort in Sardinia.

12.18. plans to raise €500 million ($551.7 million) as capital by institutional investors. Kempinski will contribute its know-how and many years of expertise in the luxury hotel industry, together with its corresponding sales and distribution channels, to the partnership.

The strategic orientation of the Kempinski Group's expansion in the future will not only be based on management contracts, but the acquisition of hotel properties is also planned. In particular, properties that may be extensively renovated and then repositioned under the group's own brands will be favoured. To date, Kempinski is purely a hotel operator - only the famous deluxe hotel on Maximillianstrasse in Munich, the Hotel Vier Jahreszeiten Kempinski, is owned by the company.

"By acquiring real estate, we benefit from the increase in value instead of paying money for management contracts," said Martin R. Smura, chief executive officer and chairman of the Management Board. "We have set ourselves ambitious goals to expand the portfolio of Kempinski Hotels with additional flagship hotels. This selective growth is focused on acquiring highly regarded hotels that will make a valuable contribution to our brand. We, therefore, select only those hotels that meet our brand values and thus the highest quality standards of our guests." - TradeArabia News Service