Welcome to the Scandic Hotels Group Q4 2025 report presentation. For the first part of the conference call, you will be in listen-only mode. During the questions and answers session, you are able to ask questions by dialing pound key five on your telephone keypad. Now, I will hand the conference over to the speakers, CEO Jens Mathiesen and CFO Pär Christiansen. Please go ahead.
Thank you, and good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us here for our Q4 presentation. I'm Jens Mathiesen. I'm the CEO of Scandic, and as usual, I'm here together with our CFO, Pär Christiansen. So let's dive into the highlights. Please turn to page two. Looking at the quarter, I'm pleased with the performance. We delivered good organic growth and a solid result, with revenues and profitability improving in all segments except Finland. Occupancy increased across the Nordic markets, with Norway remaining at solid levels in line with last year. While price development varies somewhat, the overall price dynamics are healthy. We also see favorable conditions in both Ireland and the UK. Revenues grew by 1.6%, and when adjusting for currency effects, organic growth was more than 4%.
In Sweden and Norway, our two largest markets, organic growth was around 8%, and in other Europe, around 4%. So on an underlying basis, excluding currency effects, performance was good across most markets. The acquisition of Dalata is progressing very well and developing as planned. We are looking closely and constructively with the Dalata team, where we really work on this case, and the hotels are performing well under the management agreement and in line with our expectations. Cash flow development for the year was strong, and our financial position remains very robust. Based on this, the board has proposed an ordinary dividend of SEK 2.60 per share. All in all, we are finishing the year with solid performance and clear progress. The year has also started good.
Business on books are higher than at the same time last year, and we see indications of a more favorable price dynamic, with booking levels coming in at higher pace, at a higher price point across our markets. Looking ahead, we expect continued growth in occupancy and gradually improved room rates. Please turn to page 3. We delivered a solid result with an Adjusted EBITDA of SEK 513 million, corresponding to a margin of 9.2%. Adjusted for one-off items and currency effects, the underlying result this year was slightly higher. We managed to grow the business and increase profitability across all segments except Finland. In Finland, the market remains cautious. However, looking at business on books, we see early signs of improved price dynamics in Finland, with prices up around 5% year to date in 2026.
Also, occupancy has improved steadily over the past year, and as demand recovers, we expect pricing to gradually follow. With an efficient cost base, the earnings potential in Finland is strong once the market normalizes. 2025 was all in all a good year, where we kept a high pace and completed several major initiatives. In the fourth quarter, we finalized remaining work related to some of these initiatives, including our new web and app and our loyalty program. This led to somewhat higher central cost in the quarter. With these initiatives now completed, we enter 2026 with a stronger platform, and we expect central costs to decline in 2026 relative to revenues and be broadly stable in absolute terms. Pär will come back to this in more details on the financial performance later on. Please turn to page four.
Here you see the development in occupancy, average room rates, and RevPAR for the Nordic markets indexed to 2019. Overall, the Nordic hotel market strengthened further in the fourth quarter. Both occupancy and average room rate increased, resulting in market RevPAR growth of around 7.5% for the quarter in local currencies. In Sweden, occupancy improved steadily, and price development accelerated during the second half of the year. In Stockholm, in particular, we saw a clearer pickup in pricing towards the end of 2025, following a more cautious development in the first half. Norway remains strong despite tough comparables. Denmark also delivered very strong performance, with RevPAR growth of more than 15%, supported by solid international travel and a strong event calendar in Copenhagen. Finland continues to lag somewhat.
Occupancy improved further, but pricing remained under pressure, particularly in larger cities where capacity has increased. So overall, the Nordic hotel market remains healthy, with gradually strengthened underlying momentum. Please turn to page 5. Turning a bit into Ireland and the UK, here you see occupancy, average room rates, and RevPAR indexed to 2019 for Ireland, Dublin, for UK, and London. Overall, market development was positive in both countries during the quarter. In Ireland, RevPAR index increased by more than 5%, primarily driven by higher average room rates. Pricing was particularly strong in Dublin, reflecting solid demand and limited new capacity. In the UK, RevPAR grew by around 2%. London performed broadly in line with the national average, supported by stable demand across both leisure and corporate segments. So overall, both markets show stable demand and healthy underlying fundamentals.
With a gradual improvement in the broader economic environment in Ireland and the UK, we see good potential for further growth over time. Please turn to page 6. This slide shows our pipeline at the end of the fourth quarter, now including Dalata's pipeline. In total, there were 20 hotels and more than 4,000 rooms. Of these, 6 hotels come from Dalata. We continue to see solid interest from property owners and financial partners, which support a steady pace in our development. In 2026, we will open 9 hotels in total, including 5 Scandic Go hotels, supporting our expansion in the economy segment. So overall, the pipeline is well-balanced and fully aligned with our long-term targets, giving us a strong foundation for continued and disciplined growth. Please turn to page 7. Let's take a look at at how we have developed the portfolio since last quarter.
We continue to grow selectively in Germany, in line with our long-term strategy. During the quarter, we opened Scandic Stuttgart Europaviertel, adding 173 rooms in central Stuttgart. This is our first hotel in this city and expands our presence in a very attractive growth market. With this opening, we are now operating eight hotels in Germany. We also signed a long-term lease for a new hotel in central Hamburg with 328 rooms and a planned opening in 2028. This will be our third hotel in Hamburg, and it further strengthened our position in one of Germany's key markets. Please turn to page eight. We also continue to grow at good pace in Norway, where the market remains strong.
During the quarter, we opened a new 97-room franchise hotel in Førde, further strengthening our presence in regional Norway. After the quarter, we also signed agreements for two new Scandic Go hotels, one central hotel in Tromsø with 170 rooms, and one in central Stavanger with 152 rooms. Both planned to open in 2028. These additions support our expansion in the economy segment and further strengthen our position in key Norwegian markets. Please turn to page 9. Some comments on the Dalata acquisition. Since November 7, we have been operating Dalata's hotels under a management agreement, meaning the transaction has contributed from day one through management fees. Performance so far is in line with our expectations. Operations are developing as planned, supported by solid market conditions in Ireland and the UK. Per will provide more financial details shortly.
The carve-out process is progressing according to plan, with no changes to the previously communicated timeline. We remain well on track for the integration in the second half of 2026, at which point Dalata's hotel operations will be fully consolidated into Scandic. We will continue to update the market as this process moves forward. With that, I hand it over to you, Pär. Please turn to page 10.
Thank you, Jens. Good morning, everyone. I will now go through the Q4 and full-year financials. Please turn to page 11. Looking at the fourth quarter, we saw good organic growth of 4.2%. Top line faced currency headwinds of SEK -183 million. Good result, better than last year in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark. In Finland, demand increased, but prices were soft. All in all, results better than last year, if excluding currency effects and one-offs. We saw good contribution from the management contract from Dalata operations of SEK 39 million on top line and SEK 35 million on EBITDA. Higher group cost in the quarter, explained by finalizing some of the initiatives that Jens mentioned before.
We saw non-recurring items in the quarter of SEK 30 million, 5 related to the Dalata acquisition, and 25 related to the reorganization within the commercial organization to improve efficiency. Please turn to page 12. Looking at the full-year results for 2025, we saw organic growth of 3.9%. Currency headwinds were more than SEK 500 million on top line. Profitability more or less in line with target, with a margin of 10.9% and EBITDA at SEK 2.425 billion. Good results in Sweden and Norway, other Europe on par with last year, and Finland below last year due to the cautious market. We have good cost control in Finland and high efficiency in our operations, so when the market improves, we expect to get back on strong profitability levels in Finland.
Central and group costs reflected in the investments in commercial and operational capabilities, expected to flatten out 2026 and decrease as a percentage of sales. Please turn to page 13. We have a strong cash flow of more than SEK 2 billion. Investments in line with plan. We saw free cash flow of SEK 914 million, slightly better than last year. Please turn to page 14. We have a very strong financial position, net debt of SEK 35 million, meaning a leverage of 0x. We are well-positioned to support the portfolio growth agenda, the acquisition of Dalata Hotel operations, and our dividend policy. The board proposed an ordinary dividend of 53% of the net profit and SEK 2.6 per share. Please turn to page 15. Good development in 2025 and major initiatives completed.
We have a platform in place supporting growth and margin improvement. We see a stable cost outlook with low inflation, meaning low fixed rent increases and salary cost development expected around 3%. With good cost control and focus on efficiency, we have also seen that we use less hours in the operations to support more guests. As I said before, central cost expected to be stable 2026 versus 2025, and decline as a percentage of sales. And as mentioned, we have taken measures in the quarter to improve efficiency in the commercial organizations. For business rates in U.K., they are not affecting Scandic 2026, but for 2027 and forwards, and they are part of our plan, including mitigation actions to protect our margins. All in all, we are well-positioned to drive growth with good margins.
Please turn to page 17, and I hand back to you, Jens.
Thank you, Pär . Then, as a final concluding remarks here, I will sum up a few comments. We deliver good organic growth and solid results with improved profitability across all markets except Finland. Finland remains cautious, but there are indications of an improved market, and the potential is clear. Altogether, the overall performance and momentum in Scandic are strong. The Nordic hotel market continues to show strength, and we see solid fundamentals in Ireland and UK. The Dalata acquisition is progressing very well. Operations are performing in line with expectations, and we are working closely together with the Dalata team to get to know the business in depth. Over time, we will update the market on how we see the combined platform developing and the value creation opportunities ahead.
With several key initiatives completed during the year, we enter 2026 with a stronger commercial and operational platform, and we expect central costs to decline in 2026 relative to revenues and be broadly stable in absolute terms. This year has started well. Bookings are ahead of last year. Pricing dynamics are gradually improving, and we expect both occupancy and room rates to increase in the first quarter. Leisure travel remains very solid, and we expect business travel to develop positively as the economic environment gradually also improves. This supports expectations of a higher pace in price development. We are preparing for what we believe could be a very good year, with the spring and summer reaching new record levels. All in all, Scandic is in a very strong position with clear momentum, a robust balance sheet, and significant potential as we move forward.
With that, I hand it back to you, operator, for the Q&A.
If you wish to ask a question, please dial pound key five on your telephone keypad to enter the queue. If you wish to withdraw your question, please dial pound key six on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from Alice Beer from ABG Sundal Collier. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning. A couple of questions from me. Just starting off, I'm guessing that it's hard to know when Finland will recover, but is there any possibility for you to renegotiate the fixed rental agreements that still stand from the Restel acquisition there?
I think we feel very comfortable with that, you know, that acquisition we did back in 2017, it has been very profitable for during the years. Of course, Finland is impacted by the war still in Ukraine, and everybody's waiting a bit for that one. It is a fact that we have higher fixed leases, percentage of fixed leases and guarantee levels in the Finnish organization. But when we look into how we operate and how we drive the business in Finland, and also with the light in the tunnel we see right now, we are pretty comfortable that the Finland will recover. And especially once the war ends, we see definitely a good recovery.
So it's not that we have bad contracts, and we want to get out of a lot of hotels in Finland. There's always a few, and we have already left a few during the last 5-6 years. But the majority of these hotels will be also in Scandic going forward.
Okay. Thank you. Also, did you say that prices in Finland are up 5% year to date?
Yes.
Could you expand on that?
Yeah, but it is. When we look at the... You know, we have a slightly increased occupancy level, as you saw in the second half of last year, but prices didn't come. So we didn't see price increases, and it's pretty normal that prices come a bit later than occupancy. And now we're seeing that occupancy continues to perform slightly positive, and we also see that business on books year to date is up approximately 5% on prices. So that's a positive sign, which we didn't see in the latter part of last year.
Okay, great. Moving on then. ARR growth during the year has been hit by FX, but also in local currencies, the growth is quite soft. Could you talk about the ARR growth in Sweden? What needs to happen for, for the growth to pick up?
I think when you look at Sweden especially, you should also look at the effect and especially Stockholm, which is such a huge market for us. We actually increased two-digit. Last year, we were selling, I would say more than 10% more rooms than the year before in Scandic. But we also had a lot of new capacity. We had several hotels that were undergoing renovation the year before and closed, so we opened several hotels, and we also opened two Go hotels in this period. That means that we have a lot of new capacity in Stockholm, and when we take that into account, we actually, we're actually increasing our sales a lot.
And like I say, two-digit, it's actually just above 12% more sold rooms, just for the Stockholm region. So we are very. And now we don't see new capacity coming in to Stockholm in the same speed and level. That means that there's good room for improvement of that. All in all, Sweden grew by 8% last year. So we are very satisfied with that.
Yeah. Okay. And then with … If we look at the Norway segment in the quarter, you had increased room rates and occupancy, but the margin was down year-over-year. Could you talk about the margin development in Norway, and what's going on there?
Yeah, there's somewhat measurement between the year before, especially if you look at Q4. You can say we were up against a very tough quarter, comparable quarter the year before, when it comes to that. I think we have seen also that we continue to run the business very stable. And I think also when it comes to pricing and occupancy, that has developed, you know, steadily. But you also see that Norway has increased enormously the last couple of years. And of course, there's a limit for everything. We don't know how much they can actually drive that going forward. I think it's gonna be stable. But all in all, it's pretty good.
I don't know, Pär , if you can add. Maybe you have the numbers there.
Yeah. I'm not sure exactly where you're looking, Alice, but I think when we look at the quarter, Q4, we see a slight increase in the Adjusted EBIT margin, margin for Norway, and for the full year, it's almost 1% unit increase in the margin for Norway. So I'm not 100% sure.
Oh, yeah, sorry. Yeah.
But of course, they have-
All right
... really delivered strong results, and we see no signs of decline. We see that Norway continues extremely stable, and we had a fantastic opening now in northern Norway, in Tromsø, with our signature, The Dock, which has had a fantastic start over winter, and definitely in December and January, supporting a very good rate increase. And we also see that we're actually taking market shares in Norway. So all in all, we're doing very good in Norway.
Okay, fantastic. And then just a final question from me. Are you worried about any unforeseen costs related to the carve-outs or integration of Dalata in the future? What's your visibility like on cost there?
No, we're very, very, have a good visibility and, and, I think we have a good control over the cost. It's a very technical acquisition with the carve-out, moving the properties, so of course it takes some time, but it's a stepwise plan, and we're fully in control of that. So, we're not expecting any surprises.
Okay, perfect. Thank you. That was all for me.
Thank you, Alice. Just to be clear, you know, on Norway, margins were up slightly. Yeah. Yeah.
As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please dial pound key five on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from Adela Dashian from Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Good morning, gentlemen. Just two quick ones from me. First, if we can move back to the Finnish market and the outlook there. I think you mentioned here that you already have a pretty lean organization in Finland, and there's just not much you can do on the cost side. So what will need to happen here is essentially a full recovery of the markets for our numbers to turn better. Would that be fair to say?
Yeah, let's start with that, Adela. I think a very fair question. The good thing in Finland is that we also see that you know, since we are hitting a lot of these guarantee levels and some of the fixed leases in a higher percentage than the other market, we also see that once the market turns, that the contribution from that revenue increase will be very strong, of course. And what we see now is that we both increase the occupancy and start to see price increases. That is a very important thing for the profitability in Finland, because then we see a strong return on that increase. So that is the major thing.
We don't believe that we need to do more savings or efficiency initiatives. The management team and the operational team in Finland are driving the operation very efficiently, and they do have a lot of commercial initiatives going on. So for us, it is a top line game, and we have done quite a lot of initiatives during this winter to support that going forward. And I feel comfortable that we will see a slight growth during this year, and also a huge potential going forward when, of course, both the war is ending and we can see, like, traffic will be normalized a bit more.
Great. That's very clear. Thank you for that. And then I just wanna make sure I don't miss anything on the event calendar for 2026. Could you talk about what you're seeing? Is there any sort of seasonal demand in the summer months that we should keep track of versus-
Mm-hmm
... last year, in terms of concerts? Like, anything like that-
Yeah, yeah
would be great.
Yeah, but all in all, it looks like when it comes to concerts and general events like that, it looks like that 2026 is a good year. It's like 2025 was a fairly good year as well. We have a lot of concerts coming in, both with Håkan Hellström in Sweden, and The Weeknd, and Foo Fighters and a lot of that. So there's a lot of concerts in the Nordic region. What is maybe a bit new this year versus last year is that especially in Stockholm, we see that we have more congresses coming in. This year we have, I think, 5 planned congresses in the city, whereas last year it was 0.
So that is supporting the Stockholm region during this year. But all in all, I would say it's a stable event year. But what is most importantly is that we see that people still has a lot of appetite to go out to explore and to travel, and that momentum is kept high.
Great. Just a final follow-up on what you just said there about congresses. I guess, you know, your pricing power might have been a bit limited, I would assume, post-pandemic. Do you feel like you're in a better position today to renegotiate contracts that you have with bigger companies and so on, for meetings and congresses and then things like that being held?
Yeah, and I think in general, very good question in general, Adela, because I really do believe when we, for instance, now look at what happens in UK, Ireland, taking over the latter, it is a fact that the Nordic region are still fairly cheap when it comes to average room rates. And you know, if you look at pricing in other markets on the European market, prices are higher if you go especially to capital cities. So I think there's more room to drive rate. Of course, the whole market need to do that, but normally, we need also occupancy levels to come up due to that.
I think we are in a better position, and I think when I look at the commercial and corporate environment right now, it is very good. I think when I look at the contracting period we have just gone through, you know, we see signs of a motivated, you know, customer base. We see a lot of businesses that are doing fairly stable and good, so we do not face a lot of push on the rates. On the opposite, they understand that it costs what it costs, and we also increase pricing together with the inflationary cost increases.
So all in all, I think I've been through this many, many years and it has been a very good contracting period with a lot of stability and actually a lot of expectation for growth in certain sectors. Also, due to the defense industry, which is growing a lot, a lot of governmental initiatives. It's also a fact that we will have an election year in both Sweden and Denmark. So for both the Swedish and Danish government right now, there's a lot of presents being handed out, you know, to the population.
It's gonna be a very interesting year because of election year both in Sweden and Denmark, and that will definitely support, you know, the underlying economic from private consumption. And then on top of that, we see a lot of new airline routes coming into the Nordics. Ireland is starting to move, and new airline routes comes to Ireland. That has lagged behind, but now we see movement. Copenhagen is booming. We see daily flights now from Copenhagen to Dubai, for instance. And Dubai is the world's most busy airport, and just doing that opens up the whole world.
So you see a lot of new airline routes coming from SAS, especially out of Copenhagen, and that is a good partner to Scandic and definitely supporting the years coming.
... on that partnership, and I appreciate all the great color here, but on that partnership, specifically, would you say it's been a couple of months, almost a year now, if I remember correctly?
Yeah, yeah
since you launched the partnership. So how would you say that has progressed?
No, but it has progressed very well. First of all, we have, you know, I wouldn't give the exact number, but we have enormous amount of new loyalty members. I remember we said we were around 3 million members in the base, and we are getting close to 3.5 million members. So a lot of new members in our loyalty base, but also a much more higher number of activated members. We also have a lot of linked accounts between us and SAS, where we do new initiatives together with members that are members of both Scandic and SAS. And more is to come.
But all in all, we have like, I can say we have SEK 3 million in extra turnover just from that coming in from that source. So we do have a very interesting development in the partnership, and both we and SAS, if you ask Anko, he will say the same. We are very happy with this partnership. So it is a very positive partnership where we just add value to both companies.
Fantastic. Thank you so much, Jens.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Karl- Johan Bonnevier from DNB Carnegie. Please go ahead.
Yes, good morning, Jens and Pär. First of all, I had to excuse myself. I was slightly late into the call, so if this question has already been answered, then you have to excuse me. Looking at central cost, just the level here in Q4 and the scalability that you now build into this, so what is the outlook for 2026 on these cost level? And, what do you get out of the new setup you have compared to what you had before?
Yeah. Good morning, Karl- Johan. I think, I mean, we mentioned before that I guess we are expecting the cost to flatten out and be in the same level 2026 as in 2025, in absolute terms. So we expect to be able to absorb inflation and salary increases, and as a percentage of sales, it will decrease. The Q4 peaked with a lot of deliverables to the organization, and we choose to finalize that rather than to focus on cost. And then, as you saw, see in the report, we also had a little bit of a restructuring cost for creating more efficiency in the commercial organization that we will have as a lower base going into 2026.
Excellent. And when Dalata now comes into the numbers here, hopefully during the second half, is that... Do you feel that the central level is where it, where it should be, including also Dalata?
Yeah, we don't foresee any changes on the Scandic organization in this. Of course, we work very closely with the Dalata organization right now to work on the integration, and we are doing a lot of preparations with them. A lot is going on, but I have to say I'm very positively surprised by the flow in this cooperation so far. I think the management team in Dalata, they are all 100% into this together with us, so we have, like, a very dedicated team in both ends. I'm actually going over very late tonight and will have meetings in the coming days with them.
So we are having a lot of things going on, but it's really progressing well. There's a lot of similarities between the two companies. It's a very well-run company. It's a strong organization with a very high and strong culture like Scandic. So there's a lot of similarities between the two organizations. That makes a lot of this integration easier, and we all, we have a very good partnership with Dalata team and with Pandox also in this carve-out process. So I have to say that it, so far, it's actually very positive.
Excellent. And when I look at the pipeline, you know, how you know describe it, it's obviously a big year for starting up new Go hotels in the Nordics. When you look at the ramping profile you have seen for the Go hotels you have already started, how does that compare to, say, your normal ramp-up of the classic Scandic hotels?
No, but we definitely see that we are tapping into a new segment. So we have a high occupancy and slightly lower rates on average, which also was expected. We also see that we have more, both online, direct online with Scandic and OTA business in these hotels, also expected. We wanted also to secure that we were attracting new customers and not just moving around customers, even though, of course, a regular Scandic guest is welcome to stay at a Scandic Go as well. But we have seen actually that we attracted a lot of new guests into this segment, and that has been a main priority. And then, of course, we start to adjust and build from that point of view.
But I must say that so far, it looks that we are tapping into something that is needed in the market, and that has also given, I would say, population new opportunities to have, like, a good place to stay at attractive price levels without, you know, the need of a lot of extras like fitness room and à la carte restaurant and meeting rooms, et cetera. So it fits well into these markets that we have opened so far. Now it's few openings and more will come, but so far, I think it's delivering as we hoped and expected.
... In comparison to Scandic Hotels, normal Scandic Hotels, is it a ramping profile that is quicker, or how, how do you, how, what have you experienced?
No, it is, it is, it is good. You could say what we have less food and beverage, and of course, normally we pay less lease on food and beverage, pay high on rooms. But overall, the efficiency of these square meters in these rooms are also good. So for us, you know, we would look more on the EBITDA margins going forward, and these are supporting a healthy EBITDA margin growth in the long term, and that was the purpose of it.
Excellent. I saw that you also now included the Dalata pipeline in the room pipeline. And when you see that you have two hotels coming in Berlin here in Q3, how do you see the integration of the Clayton and Scandic brands when you are in the same cities when you are looking at it? Is it gonna be driven like, say, on a total separate basis, or is there some sort of intracompany integration behind the scenes?
Well, there will be like an integrated, behind the scene because, you could say also, I will also say it's not only behind the scene, it's also in the front of scene. You will definitely see once the carve-out is being done, that we have, we will have, websites where you can actually, you can find all our different, properties and brands. Scandic has gone from a historically single brand operation into a multi-brand operation, and today we operate with, you can say, including Dalata, with actually several brands. We have five brands plus some individual, run hotels. They have, like, smaller boutique hotels, in Ireland as well, and we have our Signature Collection. So it's different brands, but we...
You will be able to look for all. You'll be able to find on a Clayton site, you will be able to find a Maldron or a Scandic, and vice versa. So we will open up for all. So this will just give our loyal guests and guests in general more opportunities in these different cities. Long term, what we do with brands and how we grow, of course, we will come back to more of that. It is natural that we wanna probably grow with more Scandic hotels in a market like Germany until we have a critical size in that market. We're still a smaller player. We only have eight hotels in operation today.
So we don't wanna run too many different brands in a German market, but it's also clear that in Ireland and UK, both Clayton and Maldron are... In Ireland, it's number one and number two brand. You know, they are equally strong as we are in the Nordics. So it's also very, very important that we continue to grow with these strong brands in the market that caters for this guest mix, which we do today.
Excellent. Sounds logical. Sounds logical. When you look at the pipeline, you earlier had this target of adding 10,000 rooms in the Scandic franchise. Is that still a valid target when you're now looking at all the things you have going on, also getting Dalata operations there?
Yeah, you could say our target of 5% growth in general, in total, year-on-year, hasn't changed, meaning that some of that comes from organic growth and some of it comes from new capacity coming in. You would say Dalata is some cream on the cake. It's something on top, and this just opens up more markets where we can actually attract and sign up these potential hotels. So and if you look at the trend in and since we announced this a year ago, we actually add an average year-on-year what adds up to the target in 2030.
So we keep up a good pace, but the most important thing is not necessarily to hit exactly the numbers, to hit the right contracts, get the right locations with the right hotels, rather than just reaching a certain target. But we feel comfortable with the targets we have announced early on.
Sounds very logical. You mentioned Germany, and if there was a similar kind of transaction as the Dalata transaction landing on your table or an opportunity, would you be maybe going for Germany on a greater scale or something? Would you be ready to do that already at this stage, or would you like to maybe get Dalata into the operation for a year or something like that before you take the next maybe bigger move, if you are looking at these kind of portfolio opportunities?
I think, first of all, I think it's very unlikely that we do anything during this year when we are spending all the energy and focus on securing a very solid integration of Dalata. So we keep all focused on that. There's a lot of individual opportunities in the market, so doing a larger acquisition is really not necessary at the current time. When that is said, we... Scandic is always looking and being open to good opportunities. So everything is about, you know, the business case as such. When you talk about Germany, I think there's a lot of movements in Germany.
It is a fact that Germany has also been lacking behind in the general economic situation in Germany, and now we see that the government is stepping up. They want to invest more in the defense industry than ever. They are putting a lot of money into the infrastructure, buildings, et cetera, in Germany. So it's yet to be seen that all this money comes out and supporting the underlying business in Germany. But we do see that Germany looks more healthy going forward than what we have seen the last couple of years. But we also feel comfortable with our very focused growth, which we have in Germany right now.
We are very focused on the major cities and strong locations with the right hotels at right terms and conditions, and that will be a focus going forward. And I haven't seen any, I would say, competitors that are, you know, highly interested for us because they always have something which is good and maybe something which is less attractive. So as buying a portfolio is not really into our focus right now.
Sounds logical as well. Thank you very much for all the extra color, and all the best out there.
Thank you. Thank you.
There are no more questions at this time, so I hand the conference back to the speakers for any closing comments.
Well, thank you so much all, and thank you for joining us. We are looking forward also to follow up on this. We actually think that this is a very exciting year ahead of us, so we are looking forward to really now benefit from all the initiatives that we have created and looking forward to discuss that further with all of you. But, we wish you all a fantastic day, and see you soon out there.