Amari CEO introduces new brands

Following on from the Amari brand remake, last October, the Thai hotel group will now launch two new brands and a management company during the ITB later this week.

Amari Resorts and Hotels CEO, Peter Henley, reported in a widely circulated email: “We are now entering the next phase in our development and expansion. On 10 March during ITB, I will launch the ONYX Hospitality Group.”

ONYX has been created to allow the group to grow its portfolio and develop new up-market brands to “cover a wide spectrum in the region’s hospitality business”.  The registered company that operates Amari Resorts and Hotels will continue to trade as it involves contractual arrangements on some hotels that it manages as well as the properties that  it owns.

However, the new company will concentrate on growing the two new brands and adding  future resorts under the Amari brand on management only contracts mainly outside of Thailand. 

During the ITB launch, the group will introduce Ozo a brand created for the service segment, mainly apartments.

But the main surprise focuses on the introduction of a five-star or “luxury” brand named Saffron, which will focus on a higher market segment than the group’s core brand Amari.

Mr Henley advised his top executives, just prior to the launch, that the “introduction of these new brands needed a new management company to distinguish them from the current Amari properties and management style.”

Both the Ozo and Saffron brands will managed separately under a newly formed company, ONYX, management company, although the entire brand line include Amari will be marketed jointly at trade shows.

Mr Henley is planning a road show to all properties after ITB to explain the new brands and management company to exectuves and owners where applicable.

Late last year, there was conjecture that group would launch a six-star brand using the name “Oriental.”   Ital-Thai the parent company behind Amari Resorts and Hotels also owns a major stake in the Mandarin Oriental Hotel, Bangkok.  It is understood top executives considered the feasibility of using the Oriental brand to go into foreign markets and sell management contracts based on the distinct management style that had been cultivated at Bangkok’s most famous hotel.

It appears to have opted for Saffron to spearhead a sortie into the luxury market in the region with India or the Middle East top contenders for the first project.