As the global hospitality sector evolves to meet shifting traveller demands, Meininger Hotels is navigating this landscape with its unique hotel-hostel hybrid model.
In an interview with Hotel Management Network (HMN), Ajit Menon, the CEO of Meininger Hotels, details the company’s expansion plans, digital roadmap as well as operational responses to talent shortages and market volatility.
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HMN: For anyone new to Meininger, how do you explain the hybrid model, and what makes it fundamentally different from a standard hostel or budget hotel?
Ajit Menon: Our guests can choose from a wide range of accommodation options, from classic private double rooms and private multi-bed rooms to beds in shared dormitories. At the same time, they have access to shared spaces such as a guest kitchen with laundry facilities, game zone with table football and/or billiards, a bar and a 24-hour reception.
What really sets the concept apart is this combination of affordability, flexibility, and community.
HMN: You reported revenue exceeding €200m and around 4.6 million overnight stays. What changes have you seen in occupancy, room rates, and the guest mix behind that growth?
Ajit Menon: Meiningerhas grown consistently over the past years. That trajectory stabilised in FY26 (April 2025–March 2026), when our performance held at a similar level to the strong FY25 (April 2024–March 2025).
While FY25 benefited from exceptional demand driven by major events such as UEFA EURO 2024, the Paris Olympic and high-profile concerts, FY26 faced a quieter events calendar. Rising cost of living pressures prompted guests to shorten their booking windows, creating a challenging environment for yield growth. A stronger event lineup and upcoming hotel openings position us well to resume growth in FY27.
In FY26, FIT travellers accounted for 69% of our revenue, groups for 23%, and backpackers for 8%. Groups are becoming an increasingly important segment for us, growing by around 10% in the past financial year, and we expect similar growth in FY27.
HMN: Barcelona is now open, with Edinburgh and Tel Aviv next in line. What made these specific cities the right choices for your next stage of expansion?
Ajit Menon: Barcelona, Edinburgh and Tel Aviv represent three important steps into new markets for Meininger, marking our entry into Spain, the UK and Israel.
We’re a city-break product at heart, so the criteria behind our choices are consistent: strong year-round demand, a diversified mix of traveller segments, and a central or well-connected location with strong public transport access. Purely seasonal or isolated leisure destinations don’t fit our model.
Following the pattern we’ve seen in other European markets, an initial entry into a country is often followed by accelerated expansion once the concept is proven locally. We expect a similar development across Iberia, Britain and Ireland markets. In Iberia Barcelona is our first footprint and we will open in Madrid and Porto in the next couple of years and look to expand further to cities such as Málaga, Seville, Valencia, Bilbao, Granada and Lisbon, while in the UK and Ireland market, Edinburgh serves as our strategic foundation, with Dublin following between 2028 and 2029, and cities such as London, Manchester, Liverpool, Belfast, Glasgow, Cambridge and Brighton also of interest to us.
Tel Aviv, meanwhile, will be our first location outside Europe. Given the current situation in the region, we’re following developments closely and will adjust our timeline as needed.
Europe remains our core focus, with several more hotels already in the pipeline: Strasbourg in 2027, Madrid, Porto and Dublin in 2028, and Cologne in 2029.
HMN: You are targeting 50 hotels by 2030. What needs to happen operationally and commercially to reach that goal while maintaining a consistent guest experience across different countries?
Ajit Menon: We follow a digital roadmap to make guest touchpoints simpler. Our chatbot MILA handles a significant share of guest enquiries automatically, we’ve introduced online check-in, and we’re working on mobile room keys, planned to roll out across all hotels by the end of the 2028 financial year.
Maintaining and improving our existing portfolio matters as much, which is why we follow three- to five-year refurbishment plans.
Our ambition isn’t simply to add more hotels, but to build scalable market positions across Europe, which means reaching 50 hotels by 2030 requires controlled, sustainable growth.
HMN: To hit that 50-hotel target, are you focusing on new builds and leases, or conversions and acquisitions?
Ajit Menon: Our growth strategy is built around long-term lease agreements, combining new-build projects with conversions of existing buildings. Acquisitions are currently not part of our business model.
New builds give us control where the market lacks the right existing buildings or where a purpose-built property is simply the better fit. Conversions let us move faster. In practice, the right format usually comes down to the location, the building on offer, and the opportunity in front of us.
What matters more than the format is the property itself: we typically look for buildings with a gross floor area of 3,500 to 10,000m2, enough for at least 100 rooms plus the communal spaces central to our concept. Lease terms are usually around 20 years.
HMN: Looking beyond the current pipeline, which markets across Europe and the wider EMEA region do you believe are best suited to Meininger’s hybrid format – and why?
Ajit Menon: We see particularly strong potential in Southern and Eastern Europe. We are looking at emerging markets such as Greece, while also planning further locations in Portugal, Spain, Scandinavia and the UK. Germany, our largest market, also offers further potential, with additional projects already in development.
These markets fit the same criteria we look for everywhere, strong tourism demand, a diverse traveller mix, and well-connected cities.
HMN: As Meininger continues to grow, what challenges do you think will be most important for the business to manage over the next few years?
Ajit Menon: The first is around talent and productivity. The industry-wide shortage of skilled workers remains one of the central challenges for hospitality.
The second is cost structure and economic resilience. Rising costs for staff, energy, construction and operations are running up against intense competition and increasingly price-sensitive demand, while investment capacity across much of the industry remains under pressure.
The third is demand volatility. Overall demand remains robust, but geopolitical developments, events and short-term booking behaviour can create greater fluctuations.
