Big push by Hilton to expand luxury lifestyle portfolio

Firm’s plans also aimed at offering loyal member more ways to spend points

Ask luxury-minded globetrotters to name their favourite hotel brands and chances are, you will hear some combination of these names: Four Seasons Resort and Club, Aman Resorts Group, Marriott International's Luxury Collection, Ritz-Carlton Hotel, and Rosewood Hotels and Resorts.

Now, Hilton Hotels Worldwide Holdings is doing its best to get on that list. Some loyalists would say it already belongs there if only for its best-known Waldorf Astoria Hotels and Resorts and Conrad Hotels and Resorts brands.

But even Hilton's top brass concedes that the hotel behemoth's reputation lies mainly with road warriors rather than luxury seekers.

While Marriott has been busy expanding into luxury all-inclusive resorts in the Caribbean and RitzCarlton into yachts, Hilton has spent the past year focusing on new corporate-leaning brands, such as Tempo by Hilton.

"Here's the irony - Hilton didn't have a full category's worth of luxury brands a few years ago," says Mr Dino Michael, senior vice-president and global head of Hilton's luxury brands.

"But if you look back before today's proliferation of luxury brands, Hilton was the international hotel brand," he adds, citing its prominence from the 1950s to the 1970s. "We have legitimacy in this space, we just changed focus for a while." That is what Hilton is aggressively pushing to change.

The corporate hospitality giant has been on an acquisition and partnership spree to expand its luxury lifestyle portfolio. Its hope is not just to grow in a segment that has sustained high demand since the Covid-19 pandemic, but to also offer its most loyal clientele - 190 million Hilton Honors members, including lots of those road warriors more enticing ways to spend their hard-earned points.

"We are going from 100 to 500 luxury hotels in 2024," says Mr Chris Silcock, president of global brands and commercial services.