🌍 Global Hotel Alliance CEO on Its $2.7B Loyalty Boom & 20A25 Growth

Glenn: Hey, everybody. It’s your hospitality. Friend Glenn, coming from Alice, 2025, in Los Angeles. I got Chris Hartley here, CEO of the Global Hotel Alliance. But first I want to thank our friends over at Uni Focus. Uni focus technology that drives value. Please check them out at. Com. Big news over here. Global Hotel Alliance is celebrating 20 years. Chris congratulations. That’s exciting.

Chris: Thank you. Yeah, it’s been a long 20 years. Very fast. 20 years. Great. Which way you look at it. But it was our best year ever. 2024. We just announced our numbers 2.7 billion in revenue on the loyalty program, up about 17% over 23. So great growth. And our cross brand revenue, which is really what drives the value of the alliances moving customers from Cabinski to Anantara to Viceroy to Arig, etc.. 30% to nearly $400 million. So we hit the million dollars a day last year, which was.

Glenn: That is fantastic. Congratulations. All right. So basically, the translate for all of you who aren’t familiar with Global Hotel Alliance. A lot of smaller, independent brands band together under them to help with some certain marketing costs. Loyalty programs and what you said. Getting business to exchange between places. Because the smaller brand isn’t global and people still travel globally, right? So what are you thinking about in this year going forward? And some of the new brands that are joining your family of brands?

Chris: So this year is going to be a lot about growth. We signed seven new brands last year and some pretty cool new markets where people are traveling to. It’s still very much focused on resort destinations, leisure travel, which is really driving growth. As an example, Sri Lanka. We signed Sri Lankan brands. So we’ll have 7 or 8 properties over there with Cinnamon Hotels Malaysia very popular at the moment. Just signed a Malaysian brand Sunway Resorts. They’re joining. We’ve got some more hotels in Dubai under the Paramount flag, the fabulous Cheval Collection in the UK. So it’s going to be a big year of new brands joining more to be announced in the in the coming months. But also we’ve got a got a lot happening in terms of product improvements that we’re working on with our brands and really driving the competitiveness of the loyalty program in 2025. And where are people traveling that this market, the US, is incredible. It’s like insatiable demand for rival Travel International out of the US was the number one market last.

Glenn: I would think. I mean, we’re here in the US. We’re seeing we haven’t seen numbers really return international travel here. And on the other hand, at least the couple of summers ago, all the Americans were going overseas. Right. So we’re seeing a lot of that.

Chris: And we’ve seen that hold up. And that’s quite surprising. We thought domestic travel would sort of revert to the normal pattern of being dominant. But now the US market is still driving international standards by far right one.

Glenn: Yeah. So what are you most excited about in in 2025?

Chris: Well, I think the sustainability of travel and expanding to markets that are now starting to mature. We talked a lot about India. China is starting to recover its Chinese ego. Happy new year. Happy new Year, everybody.

Glenn: Although you’re probably watching this in a week and a half from now.

Chris: We’re we’re seeing China rebound strongly this year. That’s a big focus for us, India. And just that number is is huge potential in terms of outbound. And from that market’s a big focus there. But other markets as well to watch Indonesia. Brazil. Now these markets are 200 300 million people. It was starting to turn into outbound travellers as well and mature. So yeah, a lot of exciting international growth coming I think in the next 12 months.

Glenn: Yeah. So remember, if you’re a smaller hotel brand out there and getting a loyalty get a loyalty program together is really tough. That’s where guys like he come into the Global Hotel Alliance, really help you get over the finish line with a lot of things and a lot easier way. And it’ll also help bring you new business. Thanks so much for being here, man, I appreciate it. Thanks. And thanks to you for watching. So for Chris and myself, hey, have a good one and share this video. Make us happy. Thanks. See ya. Bye.