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Football Star Christiano Ronaldo Becomes a Hotelier

The wealthiest football player in the world, Christiano Ronaldo has revealed his plans to open a hotel chain. Two properties have already been announced. The new hotel chain will have a symbolic name – “CR7” that is a combination of his initials and shirt number.

In order to develop a new hotel brand, the Portuguese football star has decided to team up with the most famous hotel chain of his home country – Pestana. Together, they formed a joint venture and hope to expand the newly formed hotel chain on the international market. Ronaldo and Pestana are particularly interested in Asia, the United States, and Spain.

Christiano Ronaldo is not the first star who decided to become a hotelier. Earlier, tennis players Andre Agassi and Andy Murray, football players Ryan Giggs and Gary Neville decided to open hotels, but Ronaldo has bigger ambitions as he wants to create not a regional but a global hotel chain. Two more Pestana CR7 hotels will start operating by the end of 2018. First properties appeared in Portugal and will be tested on the home market. The debut CR7 hotels in Madeira and Lisbon are already operating after rather a modest opening. According to Pestana, they generate positive results so the company is interested in expanding the newly formed chain.

According to Pestana spokesman, they are very interested in this partnership as it allows them to think of expanding their business to the regions where they would have failed alone. The CR7 brand may become successful in Asia and the Middle East as there are requests from mainland China, Qatar, Dubai, and Macau. The partners are investing 75 million euro into the new joint venture. This sum includes the two hotels that are already open.

The location of the next two hotels is already decided. These will be a hotel in Madrid and a hotel in New York’s Time Square. The design of the properties will be in line with the brand name and will be focused on football. There will be carpets with Ronaldo shoe prints, foosball tables, and various trophies. Even corridors will have a special sound of crowds cheering. Depending on the success of these two properties, it will be decided whether the brand continues its expansion.

Pestana is a family-owned Portuguese hotel chain with the portfolio of 90 properties in the upscale segment. The company hopes that partnership with the star football player will help it to improve its status of a luxury hotelier and compete more efficiently with such rivals as Accor, Melia, and even Marriott International. The company plans to increase its portfolio to 100 hotels by 2019 and will invest more than 200 million euro into the development of its chain.

29.12.2017

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