Dive Brief:
- BWH Hotels launched the Upscale & Luxury Worldwide Sales division, a dedicated global sales organization designed to drive commercial growth across the company’s upscale and luxury properties, BWH announced Wednesday.
- The new division aims to simplify engagement for corporate travel buyers and help hotel owners connect with high-value business opportunities in key markets, according to a news release.
- The division furthers BWH’s strategy to capture upscale demand driven by the growing global business travel market, according to Chad Fletcher, senior vice president of worldwide sales at BWH. The company is also committed to expanding its broader upscale portfolio, including its WorldHotels brand, per the release.
Dive Insight:
For BWH, the launch “marks a defining moment in our long-term growth vision, strengthening competitiveness in the corporate arena and reinforcing our evolution into a multi-segment global hospitality enterprise,” Fletcher said in a statement.
The sales division will help the company “deepen relationships with key procurement leaders and deliver profitable, high-quality business for our hoteliers,” he added.
The division will “build strategic corporate agreements across key high-yield sectors,” including consulting, finance, entertainment, fashion, pharmaceutical, healthcare and architectural engineering, and “streamline integration so that corporate buyers can easily discover, book and incorporate upscale and luxury properties into their global corporate travel programs,” per the release.
The launch comes as BWH looks to capitalize on momentum in the upscale market as “corporate demand continues to create immense opportunities for expansion” amid an “ongoing bleisure travel boom,” Fletcher said.
The global business travel market is projected to surpass $2 trillion by 2031, with growth driven in part by “the mainstreaming of bleisure travel,” according to an April report from Allied Market Research.
In addition to its new sales organization, BWH “is committed to expanding the footprint of WorldHotels,” a soft brand that operates in the upper upscale and luxury segments, according to the release. Earlier this year, the brand launched WorldHotels Backdrop, a new collection of upscale glamping accommodations.
