CLEVELAND—Vantage Hospitality Group has appointed industry veteran Bill Hanley to group president of international development.
In his role, Hanley will lead the expansion of Canadas Best Value Inn, Lexington by Vantage, Value Hotel Worldwide, and Value Inn Worldwide. He will also oversee the international stratification of the brands Vantage is acquiring from America’s Best Franchising, building on the inroads already established for some of those brands, such as the Jameson Inn in Kolkata, India.
Hanley joined Vantage back in 2009 to lead its midscale and upscale Lexington brands. Since then, he has grown Lexington’s domestic presence and expanded its international growth in South Korea (where Lexington is known as Value Hotel Worldwide), China, and Indonesia. Currently, there is a 261-room Lexington Legacy Hotel in Bali, Indonesia, and a 570-room Lexington Hotel in Shenyang, China.
In South Korea last year, the city of Suwon welcomed the upscale, 300-room new construction Value Hotel Worldwide, designed to cater to both domestic and international business travelers who do business with many of the area’s top technology companies. The new construction Value Hotel Worldwide in Sejong is the largest and first upscale hotel in that city and expected to open by the end of 2014 or early 2015. Another Value Hotel Worldwide is being developed for Jeju Island in South Korea.
“There is a very large demand for Vantage’s unique freestyle brand affiliation model in the international markets,” Hanley said. “By providing hotel owners throughout the world with a recognizable brand and the best distribution technology available, we have been able to make the world a smaller, more accessible place to do business.”
Other projects in China include a 200-room Lexington Resort in Huangsan City and a 230-room Lexington Hotel in Dujiangyan City, both located just outside of Shanghai. Additionally, there are five other Lexington hotels in the pipeline in Wenchang (on the resort island of Hainan), Guangzhou, Shenyang, Hefei, and Shanghai.
