Minor Hotels, the Bangkok-based hospitality group that operates flags that include Anantara, Avani and NH Hotels, announced the addition of four brands in July: luxury flags The Wolseley Hotels and Minor Reserve Collection; premium brand Colbert Collection; and select-service concept iStay. Hotels editor Christina Jelski spoke with Minor Hotels CEO Dillip Rajakarier to discuss the strategy and the company's broader growth plans and performance.
Dillip Rajakarier
Q: Can you talk about the decision to expand Minor's brand portfolio in such a big way?
A: Last year, we decided to consolidate all our brands under one umbrella, which is Minor Hotels. Before, each of our brands were standalone. And when we aligned our brands together, we saw there were some opportunities in certain areas. We also had owners who would approach us and say, "I want to maintain my brand, but I want to be part of your distribution and the Minor Hotels portfolio." So we created two soft brands: Minor Reserve Collection at the top end and Colbert Collection at midscale. Then, we created two hard brands: iStay at the select level, because we didn't have any select brands; and The Wolseley at the very top level. In total, we now have 12 brands.
Q: The Wolseley Hotels is a spinoff of The Wolseley restaurant brand in London. How do you plan to translate this brand into a hotel concept?
A: The Wolseley started off as a very unique restaurant brand, mainly due to its architecture and style. It's very British, and you get that real colonial feel when you walk into The Wolseley in London. We'll maintain that style and brand essence. When we choose locations for The Wolseley, we cannot put it in any building -- the building has to have some character, it needs to have style and elegance. We have to be quite selective as to where The Wolseley brand goes. The first one will be announced soon.
Q: What are your expansion targets?
A: Today, we have just over 600 hotels open. The goal is to get to about 800-plus hotels by 2027, and the five-year plan is to get to about 1,000 hotels through franchising and management contracts. We're going a lot into asset-light, because it's much easier to scale up. Today, we have a huge presence in Europe and the Americas, including South America, and Asia-Pacific. We also have a lot of focus in Southern Europe, but we feel there are a lot of opportunities for us in Northern Europe. The U.S. has a lot of opportunities for our brands, as well. We look at India, we look at China, we look at Japan. These are markets which are growing for us.
Q: How is performance shaping up this year?
A: Unfortunately, recent global challenges have touched all the geographies in which we operate. As a result, the pipeline has softened a little bit. But in terms of performance, the [first] two quarters [of 2025 were] very strong for us. The third quarter will be OK, in spite of July and August being soft months because of geopolitical issues, the tariff barriers, war. But we will show growth on last year's performance, though not as much as in the previous two quarters.
Now, as we see some of these global challenges start to reduce, we're hoping that Q4 will be better, as well. Europe has done well and did show growth. But last year was very good for Europe, and Q3 compared to last year is a little bit soft, because last year Europe had the [UEFA's European soccer] championships, Taylor Swift events -- we had a few big events in Europe which we didn't have this year. Thailand has had challenges with the earthquake, with the trade barriers, with the political situation. But Thailand is still showing growth. Our plan is that next year, hopefully, will come out quite strong.