Choice Hotels hires new development manager
Choice Hotels Asia-Pac, one of Australia’s largest hotel franchise groups, has announced the appointment of Liz Galea as a new development manager.
Ms Galea will be responsible for continuing Choice Hotels’ drive towards adding new properties to its portfolio in New South Wales, ACT, Victoria, Tasmania and New Zealand. Ms Galea will utilise her 20-year career in hospitality, sales, brokering and business development to help Choice Hotels continue its strong growth momentum from the past 12 months.
Following her appointment, Ms Galea said: “I’m thrilled to join the Choice Hotels Asia-Pac family in the development team. Having worked in hospitality for two decades it’s exciting to see how the hotel industry is growing and evolving. I’m really looking forward to helping Choice Hotels grow its presence of brands across both Australia and New Zealand.”
“As a former owner and operator of two hotels, I understand how demanding and difficult it can be to manage a hotel on your own. I look forward to developing relationships with prospective new franchisees across Australia and New Zealand, and showing them the benefits of partnering with Choice Hotels,” Ms Galea added.
As one of Australia’s largest hotel franchisors, Choice Hotels provides franchisees with significant benefits and system tools, including an award winning property management system, global distribution and reservation systems, national sales and marketing programs and operational support.
Choice Hotels is expanding its development team as the tourism industry in Australia is seeing significant growth. Tourism Research Australia recently forecasted that total visitor nights in Australia is expected to grow by 53 percent over the next decade, from 576,000,000 overnight stays in 2015-16 to 882,465,000 overnight stays in 2024-25. This includes strong predicted growth of overnight stays in Victoria (46 percent), ACT (42 percent) and NSW (41 percent), where Choice Hotels is looking to capitalise on the tourism boom through Ms Galea and add many new properties to its portfolio.
General manager, development for Choice Hotels Asia-Pac Daniel Kitch, said last year Choice Hotels delivered 550,000 overnight stays to properties in Australia and New Zealand, an increase of almost 30 per cent on the previous year.
“It’s clear that in order for us to keep up momentum we must continue to add fresh and new properties to our portfolio. We are excited by Liz’s appointment and have the utmost confidence in her to help lead the property growth throughout Australia and New Zealand,” Mr Kitch said.
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