Renata Ramalho
The Portuguese have discovered Brazil all over again. At least that’s the impression you get when you see all the Portuguese flags flapping and waving above Brazilian hotels these days. Companies like Vila Gale and Espírito Santo, among others, have conquered a significant piece of Brazil’s hotel market. One in particular, Grupo Pestana, stands out: Portugal’s largest single hotel company now wants to be king of the mountain in the former colony.
‘Pestana is one of the largest hotel groups in the country today’, says Frederico Costa, the director of the Finance and Investment Promotion Department of Brazil’s Tourism Ministry. After studying Brazil for 2 years, Pestana decided in 1999 that economic conditions were right to open its first hotel, which it did in Rio de Janeiro. ‘We entered the market in the city that most represents Brazil’, says Francisco Lopes, Pestana’s president and CEO for South America. In 6 years, the company opened 6 hotels and 1 Pousada – a branded luxury inn – in cities such as Angra dos Reis, Natal, Salvador, São Paulo and Curitiba.
The goal is to grow even more. Pestana’s new motto for Brazil is ‘10 hotels in 10 years’ an echo of its mission for Portugal, which goes ‘30 hotels in 30 years’. Nor is growth limited to South America’s largest country. In 2004, Pestana opened its first hotel in Argentina. ‘South America should become a market for us equal in size to that of Portugal’, Lopes says. Pestana has invested more than US$110 million in all of South America, and the returns have been greater than expected. In 2004, the Brazil division won Pestana’s business unit of the year award for achieving a 31% average annual earnings growth rate. Continue article…
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