Harry Thaliwal on Bringing EVT to Asian Owners
Above, Harry Thaliwal: “Asia is a huge growth opportunity for EVT.”
Under construction Rydges Bangkok Sukhumvit
21 Sept 2026
Australia’s EVT Hotels & Resorts is making a decisive push into Asia, tapping industry insider Harry Thaliwal as executive vice president Asia, based in Bangkok. The former Cross Hotels & Resorts CEO shares his views with Raini Hamdi on how local owners are receiving Australian hospitality concepts
Congratulations on EVT’s latest management contract in South-east Asia, i.e., a new-build Rydges Bangkok Sukhumvit, the second after QT in Singapore. Seems to have your fingerprints on closing it?
Thank you but I can’t take credit for it because it’s done by Norman [Arundel, EVT director of Hotels & Resorts] and team, who initiated it about a year ago.
Since joining EVT about two months ago, you’ve spoken to owners and partners. What’s your feel on how open they are to Australian brands?
I’m seeing a lot of excitement. One reason is that customers want to see something different. In a place like Singapore, for example, almost every brand is present, but it’s never enough. People just want to experience something new, and a brand like QT resonates with the traveler of today. We’ve had great success with it in Australia and are bringing the concept to Asian markets that are ready for it.
Another factor is our growth story. We recently announced our results on the stock exchange and owners can see that our business trajectory is impressive while our future ambitions are bold, which makes us a compelling proposition. Our brands have been around for a while; the company’s been around for more than 110 years. All this gives owners a lot of comfort – that EVT is institutionally-backed, that we’re not purely asset-light as we too own hotels and have an owner’s mindset. We sign deals that are owner-friendly because we understand the challenges that owners go through.
We also have our dedicated third-party management platform, Connect Hospitality, to provide hotel owners access to many more brands. The desire is strong to accelerate this platform in Asia.
Why are there few Australian brands in Asia?
One reason is that 30 or 40 years ago, homegrown Australian brands were built for domestic consumption because there was so much demand, and they continued to grow organically. On the other hand, Asia didn’t need foreign brands because they were creating and building their own brands with the strong backing of developers such as UOL, the Kuok Group and Jardine Matheson.
There was no Internet, connectivity, distribution – everything was offline, all static and little was dynamic, which means Australian investors knew very little about Asia, and Asian investors knew very little about Australia. So everyone minded their own business and there was no cross-border expansion. There was no real need to look outside the comfort zone wherein you understand the geography, language, risks, customer behaviors, and so on.
But as the market reached maturity, which is close to where we are now, there is appetite to look outside Australia and New Zealand.
EVT’s brands include quirky designer luxury QT, upscale to upper upscale Rydges, upper midscale lifestyle Atura, and a fourth, LyLo, which I understand is a fun budget lifestyle brand. Tell me more about LyLo.
LyLo is quite new [launched in December 2022] and I think it’s going to take this region by storm and replace many of the traditional hostels in the region. In a typical LyLo property, there are three room categories [pods, private and ensuite rooms]. The buildings are purpose-built, pre-fab and come ready with pods, beds and everything else. So, installed like Lego, connect the M&E services, and off they go.
Where are you planning to expand in Asia?
Our initial focus is South-east Asia. We are currently finalizing our market sizing exercise, which will determine where we deploy our brands, human capital, financial capability, satellite offices, etc. We started our Asian story 18 months ago with QT Singapore, which has been a roaring success for us. Bangkok is next. We have established Bangkok as our hub, where we will continue to grow the business, reporting to Sydney [EVT’s headquarters].
The three or four areas we’re obsessed with are Thailand, bearing in mind that Bangkok is the world’s most visited city. Singapore is mature and barriers to entry are high, but we’re also working from Singapore to grow the rest of Asia because so much institutional capital sits in Singapore, hence the rationale for having development presence in Singapore with Stella [Blythe, senior vice president development Asia] there.
Asia is a huge growth opportunity for the company. Naturally in markets such as Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam and Japan where there is already significant Australian outbound travel, this makes sense; however we are actively exploring markets all over the region. We also see the broader Asia market as a huge opportunity for our third-party management platform, Connect Hospitality.
What is your view on how to deploy a brand successfully?
I have three criteria always (a) is the location ready for your brand? (b) is there a genuine gap between demand and quality supply? (c) do you have the right partner to launch your brand with? Does the partner have access to quality capital, because you want to ensure you can take the property into the market on time and within budget.
How do you plan to compete with the big chains?
To me, the strategy of the global brands is completely different from our Hotels & Resorts business. We don’t have 50 brands, we’ve got four, so we’re going to be very careful about where we put our brands. We do a lot of work to ensure that we’re bringing our brands into markets that are ready for them.
However, if one of our brands doesn’t make sense, our Connect Hospitality platform can leverage our franchise partners and support operationally.
You mentioned earlier about EVT being owner-friendly. Is there a difference between Australian operators and major western chains with regard to HMAs?
Our approach is more consultative. I’m not putting a contract in front of you until we’ve had may be six or seven conversations. I keep drilling down. I need to understand what your ambition or motivation is, what your non-negotiables are, because if we don’t have a common commercial ambition for the duration of the deal, at some point it’s going to break down. In short, I’d rather have that hard conversation early.
So you need to understand what your owner wants. You cannot underestimate the value of relationships. It’s not “here’s my contract, one to 10 are non-negotiable.” We build our contracts around individual owners to ensure that there’s adequate protection for both parties. We both want to understand our exposure and also ensure that our exposure maps with our risk tolerance. The key here is flexibility.
Are you also flexible with management fees?
We will always be competitive. But we will not be at a position where it’s commercially not viable for us because ultimately, we’re responsible to our shareholders too.
A lot of times owners are obsessed with fees, but fees shouldn’t be the only consideration. You can side with someone and have the cheapest fees, but if you’re not making any money because you fail to assess the capability of the partner, it’s going to cost you a lot more down the track.
What’s your opinion on key money?
We look at all deals on the commercial merits and the opportunity, and if key money is required we can consider this in the context of the overall commercial deal. We are realistic that in certain deals key money may be an important factor.
How should Australian brands adapt to Asian markets?
You still need to maintain your identity, your brand values, your pillars, your DNA. That’s how successful brands survive and eventually evolve. Having said that, how do you ensure that your brand is locally relevant? That’s the piece that ensures you get domestic support. And this comes in the form of experiences, for example, amplifying the community involvement.
Our brands embed themselves in their local community. We’re not going say G’Day to everyone who walks through our front door; we’ll use a greeting that gives you a flair of destination.