The U.S. Stock Research Agency learned that on March 23, 2022, Huazhu Group released its financial report for the fourth quarter and full year of 2021. According to the report, Huazhu Group's net revenue in the fourth quarter of 2021 reached 3.35 billion yuan, an increase of 9.1% over the same period last year, and the net revenue for the whole year of 2021 reached 12.8 billion, an increase of 25.5% over the same period last year, of which Huazhu China (excluding Deutsche Hotel Group) increased by 30%.
Huazhu China achieved a year-on-year increase of 15.6% year-on-year to RMB172 to 87% in 2019, with ADR (average daily room rate) increasing by 13.8% year-on-year to RMB239, an increase of 2% over 2019, and OCC (occupancy rate) reaching 72.2%, recovering to 86% in the same period of 2019.
Anchor lean growth and achieve high-quality sustainability
Ji Qi, founder and chairman of Huazhu, said: "2021 is another challenging year, the continuous changes and recurrence of the epidemic have brought many uncertainties to the accommodation industry, and at the same time, the global macro economy is becoming increasingly complex. Under the background of the transformation of China's economy from high-speed growth to high-quality development, Huazhu Group has formulated a 'lean growth' strategy, transforming the 'super-large-scale growth' strategy into a 'lean growth' strategy based on qualified stores, achieving sustainable and high-quality development, and being a great enterprise with a truly evergreen foundation." ”
As an industry that has been seriously affected by the epidemic, in the face of a complex external environment and economic situation, Huazhu's vision is not only on the scale indicators, but from the idea of more sustainable growth value, digging deep into its own growth momentum, consolidating its core capabilities and enlarging the industrial cake by upgrading the three-dimensional integration strategy of "brand, technology and traffic", the basic point of which is value creation centered on customers, employees and franchisees. Through the lean growth policy, Huazhu strives to empower franchisees with diversification, effectively improve the cost and efficiency of customer acquisition, management and operation, and boost the confidence of the industry and franchisees.
Improve the brand ecology, and highlight the achievements in the high-end market
The main body of lean growth is still "growth". According to the financial report, the net growth of Huazhu Group hotels reached 1041 in 2021, and the total number of hotels in operation reached 7830, with a total number of 753,216 rooms. Huazhu has 2608 hotels to open, and 53.76% of the hotels in the mid-range and above, and Huazhu aims to achieve a breakthrough through multi-brand combination.
At present, Huazhu's mid-to-high-end brands own Orange Crystal, Intercity, Meilun, Manxin, Mercure and Novotel, with 454 hotels in operation and 264 pipelines, and the number of pipelines is expected to exceed 1,000 in 2023.
In 2021, the high-end hotel market of Huazhu will also advance in an orderly manner. The yongle Huazhu joint venture company established with Sunac has exceeded 100 hotels in the operation and pipeline. In 2021, 14 new Steigenberger hotels will be opened and 35 new huajiantang hotels will be signed, further leveraging the booming high-end business and leisure tourism market in China. At the same time, its high-end hotel brands such as Song Pin and Meilun Meihuan will usher in the opening of their first stores in 2021.
Jinan Sunac Steig hotel
Qingdao Ardor Huayu Flower Hall
Meilun Hotel Shanghai Hongqiao
At present, the proportion of high-end hotels in the domestic market has a huge room for improvement, while the intergenerational transformation of Chinese consumers has brought new consumption momentum, and a new generation of consumer groups pursues a better living standard. Huazhu keeps up with the changes in the consumer market and matches the hotel's product structure with the needs of a better life. The good development momentum of Huazhu's mid-to-high-end market is expected to become the second curve of Huazhu's future growth.
Force direct sales channels To increase user traffic efficiently
As the "traffic" support end of lean growth, Huazhu has improved its digital architecture, with Huazhuhui as the core, and imported direct sales channels such as single-store sales, enterprise customers and fourth traffic cooperation into the platform to conduct in-depth operations for customers. China Lodging Club can provide members with many services, including self-service room selection, check-in, check-out, invoice printing and one-stop service for travel. Among them, online self-service room selection can meet the personalized needs of guests; mixed payment when the points are spent, quickly improving customer stickiness and repurchase rate; self-service check-in and check-out, which can improve the efficiency and quality of service.
In 2021, the number of members of Huazhu Club exceeded 190 million, and the compound growth rate of members in the past six years reached 26%; in 2021, the proportion of central bookings increased to 58%, and the proportion of corporate customer contributions to room nights further increased, reaching 11.9%.
Driven by digital strategy, leading technological innovation in the accommodation industry
The epidemic has forced all walks of life to start digital transformation and exploration, focusing on stock integration and upgrading, and Huazhu will further promote its digital strategy in 2021 to solve hotel operation and maintenance problems from the technical dimension.
Digitalization has fully improved the efficiency and management quality of single-store operations, and a series of "easy series" digital products such as "Easy Invoice" and "Easy Treasurer" of Huazhu have realized the digital opening of all business scenarios and greatly improved the efficiency of store operations.
Huazhu continues to amplify the digital potential and promote the application of the global technology platform, and in January 2022, based on the global integration of the digital platform, the first overseas hotel was successfully launched, allowing China's hotel management to go abroad to serve the world.
In the future, driven by lean growth, Huazhu will maintain the main tone of growth, lean adjust the pace of development, and make full preparations for the rebound of the industry brought about by the recovery of the tourism economy. It will focus on ESG sustainable development, green environmental protection, carbon emissions, public welfare, corporate social responsibility, etc., to build a better place for residents, employees, franchisees, partners, shareholders, communities and countries.