Rosewood Hotels & Resorts: The Fast Growing Luxury Hotel Group To Watch

In recent times, I’ve been writing a series about some of the world’s best small luxury hotel groups, including Airelles, Aman, BVLGARI, Capella, Cheval Blanc, Oetker, One&Only, Ritz-Carlton Reserve, etc. I’ve also written about some of the bigger luxury hotel groups, like Four Seasons, Ritz-Carlton, etc.

I’d like to dedicate this post to Rosewood, a hotel brand I’ve never written a dedicated post about (though I’ve written about many of the new hotel openings, I’ve reviewed some of the properties, etc.).

I think Rosewood might just be the fastest growing and most interesting hotel group that’s scaling right now. While it’s probably most directly a competitor to Four Seasons, I think each of the brands has some pros and cons.

The Rosewood brand’s history & ownership structure

It’s always interesting to take a look at the history of hotel groups. In the case of the Rosewood brand, I’d say there have been two main chapters so far — from 1979 until 2011, and from 2011 until present. Let’s go chronologically.

The Rosewood brand launched nearly 50 years ago, in 1979. It was founded in Dallas by Caroline Rose Hunt, the daughter of an oil tycoon, with The Mansion on Turtle Creek being the first property in the portfolio. Between 1979 and 2011, the brand grew from one hotel to 19 properties, with a heavy emphasis on hotels and resorts in the Americas, including in the United States, Caribbean, and Mexico.

A lot changed in 2011, though, which is when I’d argue that “modern day” Rosewood was founded. At that point, New World Hospitality (now branded as Rosewood Hotel Group) acquired the Rosewood brand for $229.5 million.

New World Hospitality is a subsidiary of privately held Chow Tai Fook Enterprises, a big real estate and investment conglomerate. While the company already had some hotels prior to this acquisition, the idea was that this would allow the company to greatly expand its luxury hotel presence.

Under new ownership, the goal has been to grow the brand at a fast pace. I also think it’s worth emphasizing the unique way this has been done — nowadays, so much of the hotel industry takes an asset-light strategy, where the management company doesn’t actually invest in properties.

That’s something that sets Rosewood apart, since the parent company invests in many of the properties that get Rosewood branding. Given that Rosewood is based in Hong Kong, we’ve seen huge growth to the company’s portfolio in Asia, with the opening of many flagship properties.

One other thing that I think is worth pointing out is that Rosewood CEO Sonia Cheng is a pretty cool person. The 45-year-old became CEO of Rosewood in 2011. I’m not trying to paint this as some “rags to riches” story, because she’s part of the billionaire family that owns the hotel group.

However, here’s why I say this — Cheng is just an incredibly passionate person, and she clearly puts everything she’s got into running the hotel group. I imagine she could’ve had a much calmer and easier life if she wanted, but clearly making Rosewood the hospitality brand that it is today is something she really cares about.