The hotel company Hesperia wants to shine its brand. After years of promoting the entry of large international players such as Hyatt, the group is now committed to relaunching its own brand to better position its offer and grow in management through alliances with investment partners looking for an operator to run the establishments, also maintaining its position. as a heritage chain. This strategy includes the transformation of the Hesperia Presidente, located on Barcelona's Diagonal and which will become the flagship of this new stage.
The work is already very advanced and intense activity of workers can be seen in the building. The calendar is tight, since the group has proposed to inaugurate the new proposal in April, in which restoration will play a central role, explains Jordi Ferrer, CEO. The hotel company has created a business alliance with the Catalan groups BN Grup and Iluzione to create a large gastronomic space of 827 m2, with different offers (restaurants, one of them clandestine, cocktails, music...). The lobby, other common and outdoor spaces are also being renovated, which adds to the updating that the chain has already done in the rooms previously. An initiative with which they aim to elevate the hotel's position and increase the average rate. In recent years, the company has invested just over twelve million (including current actions) in improving the asset, owned by Scranton, a holding company owned by the Grifols family.
The new gastronomic and recreational space will be called Iluzione and with it Hesperia also wants to attract the Barcelona public. “There is no such proposal in the area and we aspire to become a reference place,” emphasizes Ferrer.
In total, Hesperia will invest twenty million euros for the total or partial renovation of the majority of the hotels it markets under its own brand, for which it has also designed a unique offer that differentiates them from the rest. In the case of the Hesperia Presidente it will be the large restaurant space, and in the Hesperia Barri Gòtic, which will be renovated in the third quarter of this year, it will include another cocktail and gastronomic proposal. Likewise, it has already completed the work on its hotel in Seville, which will be followed by the assets in Sant Just, Córdoba and Bilbao. These assets are property of Hesperia.
Making Hesperia a more attractive brand will help the group grow in management, Ferrer believes. “We are not giving up being owners, but we are also betting on other growth formulas,” he adds.
The alliance with the Andorran Daban family fits into this formula, through which they will begin to operate the Fénix Andorra hotel under the Hesperia brand. It is a four-star establishment with 120 rooms located in the commercial area of Escaldes-Andorra and owned by Daguisa. The long-term management agreement includes the implementation of a renovation plan, for which the property will invest 1.5 million euros, which will conclude at the end of the year.
It will not be the group's only hotel in the Principality. The company has three more hotels in the pipeline there this year and is studying options on an international scale, with special interest in America. “We want to grow outside selectively,” says Ferrer.
The goal is to add about 1,000 rooms this year to the current 4,000. In total, it has 24 hotels, including the one it has just incorporated in Andorra and the one that will operate at the end of the year in Valencia with the Novotel brand (former Expo hotel, which Pictet bought from Selenta, from the Mestre family, in 2022) . Hesperia will also manage the establishment that the Qatari fund Al Alfia is planning in Malaga.
This year the group expects to increase turnover from 160 million euros in 2023 to 178 million and double profits. Thus, the pandemic bump is over. The covid crisis, which fully affected the tourism business, led him to request a loan from Sepi for 55 million euros, which he is now returning under the established terms and deadlines. Now they open a new phase of growth.
