Chains Monitor H1 2023

As for every semester, THRENDS issues the update on Hotel Chains in Italy through our Chains Monitor Italy, which tracks new affiliations to domestic and/or international chains and recent exits, along with hotel pipeline for the next 3 years.

In the first half of 2023, there were approximately 141 new affiliations, 60% of which belonging to the upscale segment. On the other hand, there were 89 hotels that “disaffiliated” from a chain during the six-month period, most of them also belonging to the upscale segment (60%) and to a domestic chain (73%).

In the coming years (2023, 2nd half – 2026), there are approximately 164 development and/or affiliation projects, most of them belonging to the luxury (50%) segment and 75% of the total belonging to international groups.

Most precisely, this pipeline includes:

-4 hotels in the economy segment;
-15 hotels in the midscale segment;
-55 hotels in the upscale segment;
-74 hotels in the luxury segment;
-and 16 hotels under development whose segment is currently unknown.
25% of new projects involve domestic groups while the remaining 75% are international openings: the majority are American (39%), French (15%) and Spanish (11%) hotel chains.

The regions that will witness the highest number of new openings are Latium (22%), Lombardy (21%), Veneto (15%) and Tuscany (7%), while the top 5 destinations are Rome (20%), Milan (12%), Venice (8%), Florence (4%) and Cortina d’Ampezzo (3%).

Most of the new openings will be located in art cities (39%), leisure (24%), business (13%) and sun & beach (12%) destinations.

As of today, Italy remains one of the few European countries with the lowest hotel chain penetration (CPR). Excluding the regions with the lowest and the highest CPR, Italian regions have reached an average CPR of 6%. Sardinia (16.9%), Lazio (11.5%) and Lombardy (11%) are the regions with the highest CPR while Abruzzo (2%) and Trentino Alto Adige (1.8%) are the regions with the lowest CPR. Molise, in particular, remains the only Italian region where all the hotels are just independent.