While the new management team at Carlson Hotels has big plans for the company’s brands, it’s not ready to reveal the strategies it will deploy to pump up the Radisson flag in North America and to continue the steady growth of the midpriced Country Inn & Suites brand. Under new President and CEO Hubert Joly, the company will unveil a five-year plan early in 2010 that will focus on global growth in both numbers and reputation for its six brands.

“It’s not difficult to figure out what to do, nor is it much harder knowing how to do it. The hard part is doing it,” says Joly of the company’s strategic vision. Joly, who was named president and CEO of the Carlson parent company in March 2008, also took direct leadership of the hotel division this summer. The company even more clearly declared its emphasis on lodging with the recent $175-million sale of Carlson Marketing, the founding pillar of the company.

Like Joly’s group of top managers—three of four joined the company from its well-respected European partner Rezidor Hotel Group—Carlson Hotels’ future will have a definite global flavor. While more than half of the company’s current portfolio of properties is in North America, nearly three-fourths of hotels in its 248-property pipeline are overseas. The company is particularly strong in the so-called BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China), where it holds a commanding presence in three of the four regions. In Russia, for example, 25 properties are under development to go with the 18 hotels already open. Similarly, in India Carlson has 26 properties open and 51 on the drawing board.

The toughest job may be to rejuvenate the Radisson flag in North America, where it’s been long viewed by many owners and developers as a brand to choose only when more preferable flags aren’t available. Part of the company’s plan will be to import to the U.S. the levels of design, quality and service found in its overseas properties. As part of that effort, Joly says the company will introduce design standards for the Radisson brand.

And, while details are few at this point, part of the strategy unveiled next year will be to strengthen the distinction between the upscale “green” Radisson and Radisson Blu, the name given to about 150 more luxurious properties, most of which are former Radisson SAS hotels in Europe and the Middle East. Carlson plans to expand the Radisson Blu footprint in other continents, including North America.

Another aspect of the strategic plan will be continued growth of the Country Inn & Suites brand, which at 493 properties is larger than Radisson (421 hotels). More than 80 properties are in the Country pipeline, nearly all in North America. Joly says part of his team’s deliberations is to determine what extent it should develop the CI&S brand internationally.