For instance The Ascott, under CapitaLand Investment (CLI), has gone asset-light and is a major contributor to CLI’s fee income. Locally, Banyan Group has gone asset-light which has helped it shrug off its debt burden and report higher earnings. Marriott and IHG were early adopters, with other major chains like Hilton following suit and, more recently, Accor and Hyatt.
Skift, an intelligence platform for the travel and hospitality sectors, and Minor Hotels released on Dec 12 a report titled Asset Right: Rethinking the Balance Between Asset Light and Heavy Strategies, exploring the asset-light versus asset-heavy business models for the hospitality segment.
The hospitality industry has long favoured the asset-light model for its scalability and lower capital requirements. In some cases, the asset-light model has shown success.
