After crisis situations through the Corona pandemic, things have turned right for Petter Stordalen’s hotel chain, Strawberry, previously called Nordic Choice.
Last year, the hotel group made a pre-tax profit of NOK 687 million, against a pre-tax loss of over NOK 1 billion in 2021. Meanwhile, turnover increased from NOK 8.9 billion in 2021 to NOK 14.3 billion this year. the past .
– If you look at the position I was in a little over a year ago, during omicron in March 2022, the core operation has shown great development for the tremendous work of our 18,000 employees. I haven’t seen that return in even the most optimistic accounts since the start of 2022. I’ve never been close to talking about numbers like these. They weren’t even on the radar, says Peter Stordalen Finansavisenwho reported the numbers first.
billion deficit
Like many others in the industry, Nordic Choice has struggled hard when the world shut down as a result of the pandemic. In 2020, the deficit was nearly 2 billion kronor before tax, and it hasn’t improved much in 2021.
At the end of March 2020, just after Norway was locked down, DN wrote about a billion dollar debt that threatened the entire Stordalen empire.
– It’s a very terrible situation. Everything I’ve worked for, Stordalen said at the time, is for the people, for the culture… We’re doing everything we can to make it happen.
When a DN calls on Thursday night to ask about last year’s Nordic Choice results, the tone is very different.
The reason we succeeded in changing it is simple. The strength of our comeback is in the culture and the people, Stordalen says over the phone.
continued:
– We kept the people, preserved the culture, and as happened after the previous crises, we were able to return. Those who thought you could build culture and relationships with Zoom and Teams were wrong.
What does 2023 look like so far?
– It looks better than last year, but we have a background of uncertainty and an economy that is under pressure from different sides. We have high interest rates and high inflation, which makes people pessimistic, says Stordalen.
However, he says he is experiencing good booking levels from the fall onwards.
– Companies are back and have faith, even if there are exceptions.
In front of Finansavisen, he denied that he had made significant write-downs to the property portfolio, although he did confirm an impairment in the exclusive Sommerro Hotel in Oslo.
Norwegian Convention
Nordic Choice Hotels’ fun numbers come just a few days after Stordalen’s Strawberry Collection introduced a new collaboration with the Norwegian airline.
DN wrote: “One of the largest partnerships in tourism in recent times”.
The collaboration was presented at the Amerikalinjen Stordalen Hotel in Oslo on Tuesday and will initially deal with reward points – the building blocks of Norwegian and Strawberry’s loyalty programmes.
– Stordalen said that what we are creating together will change the loyalty program market.
He’ll get back to that deal to explain some of the reasons why hotels are back on the phone Thursday night.
There will never be an agreement if we don’t meet physically. And it wasn’t about the money, but about people having a common ambition and will to create something big.
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