No CommentsNoted Bitcoin advocate Charlie Shrem has announced on Twitter that on Sunday he will be joining a major hotel as they pilot Bitcoin as a payment option in a single hotel.
This has lead to rampant speculation as to which hotelier will be announcing a Bitcoin trial so I’ve decided to track down the pure statistics.
In the tweet Shrem indicated it would be a company with over 3,600 locations so let’s take a look at which locations could possibly qualify.
The largest hotel companies in the world are, Accor, Carlson Rezidor Hotel Group, Choice Hotels, FRHI Hotels & Resorts, Hilton Worldwide, Hyatt, InterContinental Hotels Group, Marriott International, Pan Pacific Hotels and Resorts, Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide, Taj Hotels Resorts and Palaces, and Wyndham Worldwide.
Let’s dig in to eliminate the hotel companies it can not be based on sheer size alone.
Carlson Rezidor Hotel Group only has just over 1,300 locations so it can be safely eliminated. FRHI Hotels & Resorts has 105 locations, Hyatt controls just over 500 properties, Pan Pacific Hotels and Resorts has just over 20 properties, Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide comes in with approximately 1,160 locations, Taj Hotels Resorts and Palaces has just under 100 properties. We can safely say that none of these companies are the likely candidates.
So let’s look at the companies remaining which are, Accor, Choice Hotels, Hilton Worldwide, IHG, and Marriott.
Now let’s look at the number of locations each of the remaining companies has to sort for clues…
Accor has 3,600 locations, Choice Hotels has 6,300, Hilton Worldwide has 4,412 locations, IHG has 4,602 properties, and Marriott comes in with just over 4,000 properties.
Accor certainly would seem to have the closest number of properties to the statement Sherm made of 3,400 locations. So let’s take a look at Accor as a company. It is based out of France and owns several brands of hotels including Sofitel New York, and Novatel Times Square in New York.
Choice Hotels is an American Hotel company that features such brands as Comfort Inns, Comfort Suites, Quality, Sleep In and other “economy based brands”. However they also are owners of the Ascend Hotel brand which contains several higher end hotels including several in New York city and outlying areas.
Hilton Worldwide is a well-known brand in the United States operating the Hilton brand but most notably they are the owners of the Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York city which is a very well-known and respected hotel.
IHG operates several brands including Holiday Inn and Holiday Inn Express and is one of the largest known brands in the United States. They currently own and operate several hotels on Times Square.
Marriott is also a US based company that owns and operates the signature The Algonquin Hotel Times Square.
If I were to speculate regarding which hotel it could be, I would say any of these are great candidates. The Accor brand has the closest number to the number that Sherm indicated but the other brands all operate larger numbers of locations and hotels and all of them include rather well-known signature hotels in New York City specifically.
What are your thoughts?
