Northstar Travel Group, parent company of Business Travel News, has
acquired HotelsWorld, a suite of four hotel industry events for senior hotel
executives in Australia & New Zealand held over three days in Sydney.
Northstar purchased the event suite from Hotels World Australia Pty Ltd.,
founded by John Smith. The acquisition follows Northstar's purchase of the
Burba Hotel Network in May 2017.
The HotelsWorld event will be
operated in conjunction with Northstar’s other hospitality focused events
including ALIS, The Americas Lodging Investment Summit, which is the world’s
largest hotel investment conference; HICAP, Hotel Investment Conference Asia
Pacific in Hong Kong, which is the largest hotel investment conference in Asia
and one of the longest continuously running hotel investment conferences in the
world; HICAP Update in Singapore; AOCAP, the Alternative Ownership Conference –
Asia Pacific in Singapore; HIFI Hotel Investment Forum India in Mumbai; CHRIS,
the Caribbean Hotel and Resort Investment Summit in Miami; HOLA, the Hotel
Opportunities Latin America conference in Miami; and Hot.E, the Hotel
Investment Conference Europe in London.
Northstar and BHN will be able
to leverage their databases, relationships, media properties and domain
expertise to help grow HotelsWorld further. Smith will continue to be
involved in the organization and delivery of HotelsWorld under Northstar’s
ownership. Ashurst, Australia’s leading legal firm, has co-hosted HotelsWorld
since its inception and will continue to co-host the event in conjunction with
BHN.
“We believe that the addition
of HotelsWorld to BHN’s portfolio of global hotel investment conferences is an
important step in building out the global leadership of BHN within the hotel
investment industry,” said Tom Kemp, chairman and CEO of Northstar Travel
Group. “The underlying growth of the Australian and New Zealand hotel, travel
and tourism business is a strong driver in making this strategic investment.”
Jim Burba, founder and president of BHN added,
“We have enjoyed a long-standing relationship with John and have great respect
for his leadership position in Australia and New Zealand hotel investment
community. The synergies between our existing portfolio of events in Asia and
HotelsWorld are potentially enormous, and in combining efforts we’ll finally be
able to shine a proper spotlight on the opportunities in Australia and the
Pacific.”