With a global development pipeline of nearly a quarter of a million rooms, Hilton Worldwide Holdings is aggressively expanding its brands around the world, according to executive Ian Carter.

A measured approach to global expansion established in 2006 and reaffirmed in 2013 remains a fundamental pillar of the platform for Hilton Worldwide Holdings, according to Ian Carter, Hilton’s president of development, architecture, design and construction.

Speaking during a break at the recent Caribbean Hotel & Resort Investment Summit, Carter said the company’s worldwide development pipeline stands at approximately 240,000 rooms and is poised to grow even stronger as executives remain committed to not just growing simply for growth’s sake.

“It’s probably the biggest challenge: We have the key to the candy store, but we don’t want to eat all the sweets at once,” Carter said. “The challenge was keeping people focused because they wanted to take on everything.”

Two watershed events helped shape Hilton’s worldwide presence, according to Carter: the merger of Hilton Hotels Corporation and Hilton International in 2006, and the re-emergence of the company as a publicly traded entity in late 2013 after being privately held by the Blackstone Group, which remains the majority stakeholder.

“What’s been the most pleasant surprise globally is how strong the Hilton name is as an umbrella,” said Carter, who was CEO of Hilton International when the merger occurred in 2006. “The doors that has opened for us has been dramatic.

“In a sense we were playing catch-up, but we were playing catch-up with a Rolls Royce,” he added.

Boosted by brands

Hilton’s 12 brands represent 4,350 hotels and timeshare properties comprising more than 720,000 rooms. Hilton Garden Inn, Hampton and DoubleTree are the primary growth brands for the company because they adapt well globally, Carter said.

Carter said Hilton’s well-documented sign-off process on brand standards is easily understood by the global development community, which also aids the expansion goals.

“Part of the strength is the brand, feasibility and development teams locally deal with the issue before it gets to become any significant issue,” Carter said.

Despite the global nature of the business, that local element is the key to success for global growth, according to the executive.

“When you are asset-light and capital-light, you end up with great partners,” Carter said. “The cornerstone of all that is having great partners who know their local market.”

Global growth

The asset-light approach has worked well in Europe, where Hilton’s pipeline is 14,000 rooms, Carter said. Because franchising is more understood in the United Kingdom, Hilton has had success introducing its brands there.

But the growth story goes beyond that, he said.

“More challenging but equally exciting is China,” Carter said. “We had four hotels there when we went private, and now have 60 with 150 in the pipeline.”

Carter said the less obvious success story for Hilton has been in Turkey, where it has 40 hotels open and a pipeline of 20 more.

The company prefers to sign strategic development agreements with a single partner to reach development goals. As it has developed that platform, institutional owners have emerged at every level of Hilton’s offerings—including the select-service Hampton brand.

“The focused-service hotel class as a real estate investment class is a good one,” Carter said. “It’s relatively simple to understand; therefore, it’s relatively simple to explain to their investors.”

Contending through conversions

Most of Hilton’s global expansion will come by way of new construction. However, 7% of the global pipeline is conversion activity—mostly through the DoubleTree and Curio brands, according to Carter.

DoubleTree is a good conversion candidate because of its slightly wider “swim lanes” in terms of brand standards, he said.

Carter said the definition of Curio is “a more iconic, individual asset that is unique in the market it lives in.”

“The acid test for me … is what’s that hotel known as?” Carter said. “Does the (return on investment) still work if we had to hard brand it?”

Carter said there are 30 Curio properties in the pipeline.

“To a certain extent, we’re being selective,” he said. “We want to make sure everyone in the Curio family appreciates everyone else in the Curio family.”

He said Europe and the Middle East present great opportunities for Curio.

Carter said the Canopy brand is a new-build brand that has to appeal to a wide base of consumers and will sit between the Hilton and Conrad brand price points.

“It’s possible the first one that’s open will be in Iceland,” Carter said. “The location in Reykjavik is exactly what we’re looking for.”

Carter said the McLean, Virginia-based company’s five-year plan is to stay the course and continue to aggressively pursue global growth opportunities.

“We’re going to do everything we can to make sure we keep the momentum we’ve seen for the last five years during the next five years,” he said.

Hilton brands are represented in 94 countries, and Carter expects that number to exceed 100 within the next five years.

“We’ll almost certainly take other brands international,” Carter said, adding that Hilton recently announced Embassy Suites’ expansion into China. “We’re kind of like Chapter One of a great story. We’ve got plenty of room to go and to grow.”