Why is Starwood's CEO Moving to China? To Get to the Other Side of 100 Hotels

For an entire month, Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide's main offices will be located in China.

The US-based hotelier is planning to open an astounding hotel every two weeks in China for the rest of this year, an agressive expansion that made it almost a necessity for Starwood's CEO, Frits van Paasschen, and other top execs from the company's White Plains, New York, headquarters to relocate to Shanghai.

The commitment to China was in place even before the Beijing Olympics, as Starwood Asia Pacific exec Matthew Fry told Bloomberg in 2008. True to its word, Starwood is now opening its new Chinese properties at a dizzying rate.

"Eighty percent of our future pipeline is outside of North America, and nowhere is more emblematic of our global growth than China," van Paasschen said in a statement this week.

Starwood currently has more than 70 existing hotels in China and more than 90 planned to be opened there. While India (where Starwood will have 100 hotels by 2015) is also important China is Starwood’s second largest marketplace, behind only the United States, though the company says it has more hotels overall outside of the US than in.

“When we opened our first hotels in China, we were basically an outpost for Western travelers,” van Paasschen said. “China continues to be the richest source of new Starwood travelers with enrollment in our Starwood Preferred Guest loyalty program jumping 71% due to the strength of our growing hotel portfolio and distinct brands that resonate with Chinese travelers.” 

Starwood — which owns such brands as Westin, Le Méridien, and Sheraton, among others — is planning to continue to expand internationally, Reuters reports, and if the China experiment works out, Starwood may do the same thing in Brazil, India, and the United Arab Emirates.

“Many predict that more than 70% of the world’s growth over the next decade will come from emerging markets, which is consistent with Starwood’s skew towards development in these markets,” said van Paasschen.

“China recognizes that hotels are an essential component of infrastructure growth, and other fast growing markets are following suit. As the world’s most global hotel company with the strongest presence in emerging markets, these trends work in our favor, and we could not be more bullish on our long-term prospects.”