Pro-invest teams with Next Story in large hotel management deal

Hotel owner and developer Pro-invest Group has teamed up with Next Story Group to create a new hotel management company with a foundation hotel portfolio of seven brands.

It comes at the time when the hard-hit hospitality sector is seeing growth in tourism for the first time in two years, after the global pandemic forced national and international borders to close.

Under the scheme, the newly created Vista Hospitality Group will introduce a one-stop-shop approach for the sector, offering services from development planning and asset management, franchising and revenue generation modelling right through to day-to-day hotel operations tailored for hotel owners and partners.

The new company will combine hotel brands from each party to immediately offer a portfolio including Next, Ink, Sage and Country Comfort hotels, plus Sebel, voco and Hotel Indigo brands.

The Sebel Canberra Civic will be in the new Vista Hospitality group.Credit:

Founder, chairman and chief executive of Pro-invest Group, Ronald Barrott, said Vista Hospitality will launch with more than 1500 rooms in operation, and has a target to grow its footprint to 5000 rooms in the next five years.

“Pro-invest Group’s investment in this region means we’re strategically well-placed to bring this exciting partnership to fruition with Next Story Group to own a new space in the market,” he said.

In February last year, as the pandemic was entering its second phase, Pro-invest bought the former Primus Hotel in Sydney for $132 million. It is now the country’s only Kimpton brand hotel and is managed by Intercontinental Hotel Group under a franchise agreement with Pro-invest.

Vista Hospitality will be chaired by hotel sector veteran Tony Ryan.

Next Story Group chairman Patrick Imbardelli said the joint venture was aimed to fill in a gap in the region’s hospitality sector as the “platform for future growth”.

“Vista Hospitality Group comes to the market with our combined dynamic portfolio of brands that range from mid-market to luxury, [and] also the versatility to work with existing global hotel brands in a white-label approach not yet offered in our sector.”

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