China's H World Is Already Bigger Than Wyndham. Now it Aims to Double

H World grew to have more hotels and loyalty members than Western hotel giants by using better tech, pre-fab construction, and pre-paid discount cards for guests.

H World Group has built an empire that's larger than all major Western hotel companies in hotel count and loyalty membership, and it's still growing fast.

"We grew from nothing to over a million rooms in the 20 years since our founding," said Jihong He, chief strategy officer of H World Group and executive chair of H World International, in an exclusive interview. "That shows we're doing something right. ... We aim to reach 20,000 hotels within five years."

The Shanghai-based company, which ran 11,147 hotels as of late last year, will mainly open budget and limited-service properties in China's underserved smaller cities. It also aims to grow abroad with upscale international brands like Steigenberger, Intercity, and Zleep.

H World had 1.08 million rooms as of December and last year generated $3.3 billion in revenue. That was more than Wyndham's 893,000 rooms and $1.4 billion in revenue. (Marriott and Hilton surpassed H World in room count and revenue.)

As of March, H World expected revenue from its Chinese hotels to grow 5% to 9% this year, before President Trump announced high tariffs on the country.

H World's loyalty program has 267 million members — surpassing Marriott Bonvoy's 228 million as well as Chinese rivals Jin Jiang and BTG Homeinns.

A key driver of sign-ups within China is stored value cards that give access to discounts.

"It's a little bit like Costco," He said. "Guests can use the pre-paid cards to book future