The hotel business has the separate concepts of "operator" and "owner". The operator is the brand you know. The owner is some property ownership company that

The hotel business has the separate concepts of "operator" and "owner". The operator is the brand you know. The owner is some property ownership company that contracted a particular operator to build and run their property. The branding is so thorough that you generally don't see any indication of the actual owner, except in the rare cases where a property changes brands. Just take a look at this list of the top 25 hotel owners: http://nreionline.com/research/real_estate_top_hotel_owners_0701 http://nreionline.com/research/real_estate_top_hotel_owners_... A few are the brands themselves, since they are the owner/operator for some properties. But many are companies you have never heard of that own hundreds of hotels.