Viceroy CEO Argues Bigger Is Not Better For Hotel Groups

Recent consolidation efforts are not improving the agility or guest experiences of larger hotel groups, the CEO of California-based Viceroy has said.

- Robert Anderson

Speaking to Gulf Business, Bill Walshe argued larger players would not be as quick to market with innovations and deployment changes as their smaller peers, even if they did have advantages in terms of the size of their loyalty programmes.

“The larger they get the slower they get,” he said. “Those large merged conglomerate global organisations – by the time they’ve finished the approval process of a new initiative, we’ve already deployed it.”

Walshe was speaking after the opening of the $1.17bn Viceroy Palm Jumeirah Dubai, which brought the company’s number of open properties to 14.

In comparison Marriott now has 5,700 properties globally and 85 million rewards members following its merger with Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide.

The Viceroy CEO said despite the scale of the competition, smaller hotel operators could still compete through alliances and other measures.