GUANGZHOU, CHINA 7 Days Group Holdings Ltd. opened 231 net hotels in 2010, including 85 net leased-and-operated hotels and 146 net managed hotels.
The growth exceeds 7 Days’ full-year goal of 170 to 200 net hotel openings. At its current rate of expansion, taking into account both the expected hotel openings scheduled for 2011 and the estimated hotel development pipeline by the end of this year, 7 Days expects to achieve its target of having 1,000 hotels open and in the pipeline.
As of December 31, 7 Days had a total of 568 hotels in operation, consisting of 321 leased-and-operated hotels and 247 managed hotels.
“We are pleased to see that the scalability of our business model, supported by our powerful e-commerce platform and our industry-leading membership club, is proving stronger than the management team had originally anticipated,” says CEO Alex Nanyan Zheng. “ooking into 2011, I am confident that we will be able to maintain our expansion momentum, which will help to increase brand awareness and is ultimately aimed at better satisfying the growing demand from our over 14 million loyalty club members for more convenient access to our high quality hotels and services.
“In addition, we believe our consistent track record of growth and well-established operating systems will help to attract more franchisees and increase our operating scale as we continue to grow. As we currently have approximately 200 hotels under conversion, we are confident that we will be able to meet and exceed our target of 240 net hotel openings in 2011, which will allow us to solidify our position as one of the fastest expanding companies in the industry in China.”
7 Days converts and operates limited-service economy hotels across major metropolitan areas in China under its 7 Days Inn brand. 7 Days ranked as the fourth largest hotel company based in China and the 34th largest in the world in the 2010 edition of HOTELS’ 325, the annual listing of the world’s largest hotel companies.