Japanese Couple Building a Global Hotel Empire : Holdings Have Expanded From Brazil to Include the Algonquin, the Beverly Wilshire and the Westin Chain

Chieko Nakamura Aoki’s husband isn’t as well known as Ivana Trump’s Donald, nor are her New York hotel holdings as vast as Leona Helmsley’s. But she is right up there among these grand dames of the hotel business.

The diminutive hotelier is overseeing an empire that includes the legendary Algonquin in New York, the Beverly Wilshire and the Westin Hotels & Resorts chain, which operates 65 hotels, including the Century Plaza in Century City, the Plaza in New York, Las Brisas in Acapulco and Mauna Kea Beach Hotel in Hawaii.

Westin, which is based in Seattle, was acquired last January by Aoki Corp., the Tokyo construction company headed by Chieko Aoki’s husband, John Hiroyoshi Aoki, 57. Earlier this month, after 25 years of trying to find a hotel in Tokyo to manage, Westin reached an agreement to manage a new 500-room luxury hotel to be built by Sapporo Breweries Ltd.

The Aokis are an unusual husband and wife team in corporate Japan, a country where women are virtually nonexistent in big business circles. He is president and chief executive of Aoki Corp., which was founded by his father in 1947. She oversees the firm’s hotel business as deputy chairman of Westin and as president of another subsidiary, Caesar Park Hotels Group, which operates hotels in South America, Taiwan and New York. (The Aokis are not related to Rocky Aoki, the restaurateur and speedboat racer.)

At a recent news conference at the Century Plaza, it was Chieko Aoki who held center stage. Dressed in a bright green and black knit suit, she signed a contract for Westin to manage its first hotel in Tokyo for Sapporo Breweries Ltd. Her husband looked on amid the glare of camera flashes and television lights.

Chain Is Expanding

Aoki Corp. is one of a number of Japanese firms aggressively moving into the international hotel business. Last October, Seibu/Saison Group paid $2.27 billion to buy the Inter-Continental Hotel chain, which includes the Mark Hopkins in San Francisco, the Mayfair in London and a part ownership in the Willard in Washington. Both Japan Air Lines and All Nippon Airways operate hotels in the United States.

In the 11 months since Aoki acquired the chain, Westin has added six new hotels to its roster. Four of the six--the Swan, under construction at Disney World in Orlando, Fla., and others being built in Shanghai; Cancun, Mexico, and Portugal--were originally planned to be part of Aoki’s Caesar Park Hotels subsidiary, which continues in existence with seven other hostelries.

“With Westin we are going to be a real international company,” Chieko Aoki explained. “It is important for Aoki because the world (of business) is getting global. . . . For any company to survive it has to be global.”

The husband and wife team move easily in international circles. At age 6, Chieko moved with her family from Japan to Brazil, where she became a naturalized citizen and a lawyer. Her husband, who earned a law degree at Tokyo University, held several government positions--one had him posted in Brazil, where they met--before going to work for Aoki Corp. They both speak Japanese, English and Portuguese fluently.

She lives in New York and Seattle; he is based in Tokyo. They meet in different parts of the world. “We talk daily by phone,” she explained, adding, “80% of it is about business.”

The Aokis got into the hotel business “by chance” when the firm completed construction of two hotels in Brazil, according to John Aoki. The hotels’ owners wanted to sell them, so Aoki acquired an equity interest in the Caesar Park Hotels in Sao Paulo and Ipanema. With that purchase, his wife started her career in the hotel business.

“I was dispatched to Brazil because I spoke Portuguese,” she said in an interview recently. But first, she went to Cornell University in 1982 for a crash course in the hotel business and then began working in the sales and marketing department of the Brazilian hotels.

Client’s Point of View

“She didn’t understand the hotel business, but she did understand the language,” her husband joked. “Women generally have a good sense about hotels.”

Countered his wife: “I had traveled a lot around the world with my husband, so I had a client’s point of few of what is a good hotel.”

The hotels flourished. “We were very lucky. The Brazilian market was very good for us. Our two hotels became the best,” her husband explained. Caesar Park Hotels added other hotels, including the Algonquin and a one-third interest in the Beverly Wilshire.

Then came Westin, which Aoki purchased from Allegis Corp., now known as UAL, parent of United Airlines. “We realized the hotel business was very profitable,” explained Chieko. “We also knew the travel industry would grow more in the future. We were planning to expand. Mr. Aoki received an invitation from his main banker (Industrial Bank of Japan) about Westin. He made up his mind in one week” after he met with billionaire investor Robert M. Bass of Ft. Worth.

Originally, Aoki and Bass disclosed that they were buying Westin for $1.53 billion, but the Texan never purchased any interest in the chain. “Bass was only interested in the Plaza in New York,” Aoki explained.

Bass has since sold the Plaza to Donald J. Trump, but the hotel is still managed by Westin.

So far, Westin has spent a total of about $200 million to acquire the Inter-Continental at Hilton Head Island in South Carolina, the Inter-Continental at Buckhead in Atlanta, and an equity interest in the Westin La Paloma in Tucson. It plans to spend $1 billion during the next 10 years and to double the number of its hotels to 130. Half of the new hotels are planned for the United States.

When Westin announced plans for the new hotel it will manage in Tokyo--a $240-million luxury facility--John Aoki also disclosed plans for another Westin hotel in Osaka.

“We have just put together a new strategy plan for some years to come,” he said in an interview. “We have three principal ideas: One, aim for better quality; two, expand, and three, to be global--to be in Europe, Asia and many more hotels in the United States.

“My philosophy,” he explained, “is to mix American efficiency with Oriental hospitality and European elegance.”