The Croatian Hotel Story of Growth, Investment, and Transformation

Nearly 60 years of hospitality experience today forms the foundation of one of the most dynamic development stories in Croatian tourism. Aminess Hotels & Resorts has transformed in recent years from a traditional hotel company into an integrated hospitality platform that bases its growth on a combination of its own investments, acquisitions, management of partner properties, and the development of its own brands, people, and operational systems.

The scale of this transformation is best illustrated by numerical data. In 2019, Aminess operated six properties in three destinations, generating approximately 30 million euros in revenue and employing around 500 people. Today, the business system managed by Aminess encompasses 33 hotels, resorts, and camps in 12 destinations, generating over 160 million euros in revenue and employing more than 2600 people. This growth has not only been achieved through an increase in business volume but also through simultaneous investments in product quality, stronger organization, and the ability to manage an increasingly complex portfolio.

Strong Investments

At the core of Aminess’s strategy is the balanced development of its owned and asset-light portfolio. The company continues to invest heavily in its own tourist properties, conduct selective acquisitions, and reposition existing properties towards higher market segments. At the same time, through its sister company Aminess Hospitality Group, it develops operational management and franchise models for hotels, resorts, and camps owned by others.

This approach enables the connection of capital and long-term development of tourist properties with the scalability of hotel management. Aminess does not choose between ownership and asset-light; rather, it uses them as complementary levers for growth. Its own portfolio allows for value creation through investment, product development, and asset repositioning, while management and franchise models enable faster expansion, entry into new destinations, and the application of Aminess’s knowledge without the need for ownership of each property.

Portfolio Expansion

Aminess currently manages nine partner properties, and just this year, four new properties in three destinations have been included in the system. Their successful integration, along with the simultaneous operational management of the rest of the growing portfolio, confirms the organization’s ability to take on new properties, integrate them into common sales, operational, and management systems, and ensure continuity and quality of operations. In parallel with the portfolio expansion, Aminess continues to invest heavily in raising the quality of its own products. This year, an investment was completed on Korčula for the renovation and repositioning of the Aminess Younique Korčula Heritage Hotel into a five-star heritage hotel. Today, the portfolio includes a total of six five-star properties, clearly indicating the direction of further development towards the upscale and upper-upscale segments.

New investment cycles are also in preparation, encompassing extensive reconstructions and repositioning of part of the existing portfolio, as well as the development of several greenfield projects. Thus, Aminess is simultaneously working on increasing the number of properties and enhancing their individual quality, market relevance, and long-term value. The goal is not only to expand the portfolio but to gradually transform it towards higher categories and more strongly differentiated hotel and camping products.

Further expansion is also planned through the management model of partner properties – asset-light. Currently, five additional properties are being prepared for integration into the Aminess system during the next year. This confirms that the management of partner properties is not a standalone business initiative but part of a broader strategy for the development of Aminess as a leading regional hotel group. An additional potential breakthrough is the recapitalization process of Jadran d.d. Crikvenica, in which a consortium that includes Aminess has been selected as a strategic partner. This is a complex process that still needs to go through all necessary corporate and regulatory steps, but Aminess views it as a significant developmental challenge and an opportunity to apply its integration, investment, and operational capabilities on an even larger scale.

Unique System

The key strength of Aminess’s platform lies in the knowledge and system behind the growing portfolio. In recent years, a unique corporate and operational system has been built that connects sales, marketing, revenue management, procurement, finance, human resources, digitalization, quality management, and product development. This system enables new properties to be integrated more quickly, repositioned in the market, and connected with the strength of a larger hotel group, while preserving their identity and the uniqueness of the destination. Aminess is also developing its own architecture of hotel and camping brands tailored to different guest segments, types of products, and investment models. The goal is not to make every property the same but to build a strong and adaptable platform that can support various products, from heritage hotels and boutique hotels to large resorts and camps.

The development strategy until 2030 is focused on further strengthening Aminess’s position as one of the leading hospitality platforms in Croatia and the region. Priorities include continuing investments in its own portfolio, selective acquisitions, increasing the number of partner properties, raising the share of higher and premium category products, and further developing people, technology, and organizational capabilities. For Aminess, growth is therefore not just a matter of the number of properties, rooms, or destinations. The key measure of success is the ability to increase the value of each property through stronger market positioning, revenue growth and direct sales, more productive operations, extending the season, and providing a better guest experience. It is precisely the combination of capital, hospitality knowledge, and the established corporate system that forms the foundation for the next phase of the company’s development.