U.S. hospitality giant Hilton Worldwide Holdings is launching Undergraduate by Hilton, an upper-midscale hotel brand to complement the Graduate by Hilton brand and expand its college and university market offerings.
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Hilton plans 400 to 500 Undergraduate hotels, with the first property slated to open next year. The brand’s “flexible development model” will support new-build and conversion projects, Hilton stated in a news release.
The hotels will be designed as “off-campus social hubs” with social spaces, all-day markets and a cocktail program, targeting visitors to college towns like families, alumni, sports fans and business travelers.
The brand launch comes about two years after Hilton inked a deal to acquire Graduate Hotels for $210M, with hopes it would become a “megabrand” within hospitality. The deal included 37 existing and planned properties in university towns, each themed to align with nearby schools.
Graduate by Hilton now has close to 60 hotels in various stages of development in college markets, Hilton stated in a Monday press release, including Tuscaloosa, Alabama; Manhattan, Kansas; and Savannah, Georgia.
The two college-focused brands will differ because Graduate by Hilton is an “upper-upscale, fully bespoke, design-driven lifestyle brand with highly individualized design and robust, full-service food and beverage programming,” per the release.
Undergraduate by Hilton will be upper-midscale and built on a flexible, prototypical model that allows for efficient scaling.
“Undergraduate reflects the ongoing momentum of our Lifestyle portfolio, which is one of the most dynamic areas of expansion for our company as we plan to grow to offer 700 Lifestyle hotels globally by 2028, with 60 opening this year alone,” Hilton CEO Chris Nassetta said in the release.
Counting Undergraduate, Hilton owns 25 hospitality brands. In January, it launched a partnership with Placemakr, an apartment hospitality brand and operator specializing in short-term and extended-stay rentals.
Hilton planned to add up to 3,000 units to its existing 10,000-unit apartment-style global portfolio through the Apartment Collection by Hilton, which represents “the next chapter in Hilton’s growth story,” Nassetta said in January.
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