COLLABORATION IS KEY

Kerten Hospitality, CEO. Marloes Knippenberg talks about mixed-use operations, the rise of long-stays and how to quell owner-operator quibbles

- JOSH CORDER

Kerten Hospitality has enjoyed rapid growth during its five years of operation. With 4,000 keys, more than 30 projects and 11 owned brands in the portfolio, the mixed-use operator has taken on the competition and, in many cases, won.

According to CEO Marloes Knippenberg, the secret to success has been to never focus on competition at all.

She told Hotelier Middle East: “We’ve never created a very competitive environment. From the very start, brand collaboration was one of the pillars of Kerten Hospitality. For us, it helps that everybody else is getting into that same zone.”

Knippenberg was speaking before her appearance at the Future Hospitality Summit in a debate on disruptive and radical hotel groups.

“We’ve been labelled as the disruptors and the rebels when in fact we’ve never disrupted anything. All we’ve done is look at the emerging trends and ride that wave.

“It’s taken hoteliers a long time to see that competing for growth isn’t the only thing you should be worried about.“

As a mixed-use operator, Kerten brings together working spaces, F&B, short-stay and long-stay accommodation options all under one roof.

Knippenberg explained: “When you combine both short and long-stay concepts, you have a bit of everything, and one target audience motivates the other to come in. That’s really what you do.

“From an owner’s perspective, the benefit is that you don’t build a standard hotel where you’re competing with everybody else on the street.”