Hospitality Design - September 2011 - 71

interview: thorsten kirschke
By Stacy Shoemaker Rauen

perspectives

clear vision
Thorsten Kirschke is all about controlled growth. Since taking over as president of Carlson Hotels, Americas, two years ago, he has led the re-launch of the Radisson brand, part of the company’s Ambition 2015 growth plan. And it’s no easy feat. It’s a $1.5 billion investment for its 422 hotels in operation and 90 in the pipeline. And now he’s bringing the design-forward Radisson Blu brand to the U.S. this fall. Here, he talks about relevancy, why private jets are a good idea, and a serendipitous deal. HD: What is this Ambition 2015 plan? TK: We started that exactly two years ago and crafted the strategy for the hotels, knowing that the business needed a long-term vision, and knowing that the hotels, speciﬁcally in North America, needed some kind of a turnaround. I think the main goal is growth. But in a nutshell, it is about creating a relevant global hotel portfolio that leads in their respective segments. It is about growth and its global dimensional ﬂow, but it’s equally about creating relevant brands, not necessarily more brands. I don’t think that our foreseeable future is looking at expanding our portfolio to 17 or 23 brands. It’s ﬁrst and foremost about taking the ﬁve brands we have and making them relevant to the global market. I would throw in the notion here that we believe more and more about something we call the new global, because I think globalization has almost taken on a course of its own and become a self-fulﬁlling prophecy. We need to take control over that globalization and make our products more relevant than ever. HD: How would you deﬁne this new global? TK: It starts with the simple question of how does a hotel look when you place a hotel in India? How does that brand unfold if you take it to India, China, into Western Europe, or Russia? Is there a place at all for a Country Inn in Africa? How does that look point from of an view architectural through to need for product improvement, which is true for North America as a whole, as the majority of the global brands are U.S.-born and -based. The U.S. is really the cradle of the branded hotel and the hospitality industry. While there’s much younger inventory in Europe, and lately, of course, in Asia, we see that North America’s product has dated over the decades where globalization took place. It’s fair to say that everybody has some homework to do. But like Sheraton, like Holiday Inn, like everyone, we are doing what we had hoped to do and we’re having a very open dialogue with our partners. We have more than 90 percent of them committed to property improvement plans within the Radisson brands, and Radisson more than others, because it’s the legacy brand of Carlson. It’s the oldest brand with the biggest heritage, and we want to preserve that value and legacy within that brand. interested in a controlled global growth. I think that’s an exciting challenge for the industry at large. Everybody talks about China and India, the emerging markets. It’s good to see how our industry is taking more time and more care to see how that can be done. HD: You are putting a lot of money into renovating the Radisson brand. Why now? TK: It’s not an easy time—capital is not available. It’s not like investors sit with piles of money in their accounts, ready to be deployed against renovation plans. But there is a fundamental

the interior design and the services provided? So rather than uncontrolled global expansion, we are much more

Right: The striking exterior of the Radisson Blu Aqua Hotel Chicago. Far right: The lobby of the Radisson Blu Royal Hotel Dublin.

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September 2011

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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Hospitality Design - September 2011