As Carlson CEO Hubert Joly said during the company’s global conference in March, it’s easy to announce ambitious plans for growth. It’s an altogether different thing to execute such plans. But according to Thorsten Kirschke, Carlson is well on its way.

The five-year strategy titled ‘Ambition 2015’ outlined plans for Carlson to become a “vibrant, innovative hotel company with segment leading brands known as the No. 1 hotel company to work for and the No. 1 hotel company to invest with,” Joly explained. The most notable and daunting aspect of the plan was the relaunch of the company’s flagship Radisson brand in North America, where it has lagged well behind its European counterpart’s success in growth and perception among guests and owners.

“It’s one thing to put a strategy on paper,” says Kirschke, the recently promoted global chief operating officer for Carlson Hotels. “This is the first time for Carlson in many years we’ve seen a strategy like this in action and we are executing it against its objectives and putting money on the table.”

Radisson Revival
It’s easy to track Carlson’s progress on many of the Radisson initiatives and see why Kirschke is so enthused. Joly said Carlson and its partners planned to invest between $1 billion and $1.5 billion over the next five years to improve the North American Radisson portfolio to match its global upscale standards and to introduce the upper-upscale Radisson Blu concept here. Last March, executives unveiled five new guestroom designs, new service initiatives and other brand enhancements.

By year’s end, Carlson had already earmarked $480 million to develop its own Radisson Blu properties in Chicago (set to debut in September), at the Mall of America in Minneapolis (2012 opening) and another soon-to-be-announced location “in the U.S. at one of the big 10 targeted mega-capitals,” Kirschke said. Part of that half a billion dollars has gone for renovations at Carlson’s owned Radissons and to other technology and ecommerce investments.

The franchise community has responded with almost as much verve. At the conference, 25 percent of the owners had already agreed to the necessary property improvements necessary for the upgrade. That number has now reached 75 percent who have committed to the improvements in the next 12 to 24 months and a quarter are already underway on the changes.

“That’s a huge, huge commitment (during) a recession or hopefully the sunrise of the rebound,” Kirschke says. “I’m very happy about that and if all goes according to plan, 50 percent of Radisson North America will have completed or be in the process of by next year at this time.”

Of the projected $1.5 billion investment in Radisson, $650 million was expected to come from Carlson and its franchisees for renovations. There are 125 Radisson properties in North America and 424 globally.

Some owners have opted not to make the journey, and even more haven’t been asked to come along for the ride. Kirschke says 12 percent of the portfolio was dropped in 2010 and he expects about the same number to be terminated this year. “You have to walk the talk and weed out rotten apples,” he says of making the brand more consistent.

The first new Radisson prototype is expected to open next month in Menomonee Falls, WI, where a long-time Country Inns & Suites owner is converting an abandoned and gutted building into the new-look brand.

In addition to the three Radisson Blu flagship locations Carlson is developing, Kirschke says one or two corporate-owned properties could be converted into Blus so that by 2013, Carlson would have approximately six Blu properties open. “That will then contribute to the desired halo effect,” Kirschke says.

Beyond Radisson
‘Ambition 2015’ isn’t only about Radisson, but also improving all of Carlson’s brands and the way the company does business.

Since the global conference in Orlando last March, Carlson has been busy. In May, Carlson became the majority shareholder in The Rezidor Hotel Group, its long-time European partner. In June, Carlson and Rezidor finalized the sale of Regent, their luxury hotel business, to Formosa International Hotels Corp.

Carlson also has added several new positions and offices as part of its new global strategy aiming to grow the entire portfolio of approximately 1,500 properties by 50 percent within five years.

Most recently, Simon Barlow was named president of Carlson Hotels, Asia Pacific, where Jean-Marc Busato had previously served before shifting to area vice president, Carlson Hotels, Latin America. In September, Kirschke was promoted to global COO and president of the Americas and Christer Larrson was added as vice president of food & beverage to help promote new restaurant concepts rbg (Red Bar & Grill), a casual dining option, and Filini, the more upscale Italian venue.

Frederic Deschamps was named vice president of global revenue optimization in June and as further proof of Carlson’s focus on revenue generation, new global sales offices opened in New York, Brussels, Delhi, Shanghai and Tokyo. Kirschke adds that a new loyalty program—“new name, new redemption scheme, a whole new way of looking at loyalty altogether”—will be launched in February at the 2011 global business conference in Washington DC.

Although Radisson has rightfully garnered the headlines, stalwart midscale brand Country Inns & Suites has been moving forward as well. Strictly a new-build option, with financing and construction limited, the brand shifted its approach to open the door to conversion opportunities. Its first two fully converted properties opened last year and several more have signed and are currently being converted. Park Inn, a midscale offering with food & beverage, has also added four properties in the U.S. through conversion.

“They’ve been a huge success,” says Kirschke of the two midscale brands, “and opened a whole new perspective to drive the midscale market in North America.”

Overall, Carlson signed 79 new properties globally and opened 63 through November of last year. Of those, 42 signings were for Radisson with 22 openings globally. Two opened in North America and six are now in the pipeline.

“To me, that’s not sounding like a year of recession,” Kirschke says. “It’s a fantastic year behind us, and while we realize we are in the beginning scheme of things and there are bigger companies out there, we have a proposal on the table that is not just about size, but about profile, character and quality and about the true sense of hospitality and the operations of hotels.”