• Bloomberg, Thursday, September 23, 2010 8:29 AM

Believing that brand recognition will lure affluent clients, Richard Branson's Virgin Group will spend as much as $500 million developing hotels in as New York, San Francisco, Miami, Boston and Los Angeles, and plans to eventually expand globally, Nadja Brandt reports.

Virgin Hotels will cater to "high-income, well-educated, metropolitan 'creative class'" customers, according to a Web brochure that invites property owners and developers to partner with it. Virgin plans to have as many as 25 hotels within a decade.

"It is a competitive market with very savvy competitors," says Anthony Marino, an executive director of the new venture. "But if you look at Virgin's history, we have come into markets with big powerful players, where customers are generally satisfied but not in love, and we have been able to cut through that."

Read the whole story at Bloomberg »