Strawberry (formerly known as Nordic Choice Hotels) is one of the largest hotel companies in Scandinavia with 240 hotels in the Nordics and the Baltics and over 16,500 employees.[1][2] It is a franchisee of Choice Hotels International. The franchise agreement gives the company the right to use three brands and their umbrella brands. Apart from that, Strawberry is in most aspects run independently from Choice International. Strawberry also runs more than 120 restaurants, 20 spas and a number of gyms, conference halls and arenas.[3]
History
Nordic Choice Hotels was established in Norway in 1990 as Choice Hotels Scandinavia. During 1994 the company signed a franchise agreement with Choice Hotels International that gave them the right to market its hotels as Comfort, Clarion and Quality hotels. The company was listed at the Oslo stock exchange in 1997, but was lifted in 2005 when Home Invest (owned by business man Petter Stordalen) bought 100% of the stock.
In 2018, Petter Stordalen transferred ownership of the company to his three children – Emilie, Jacob and Henrik Stordalen.[4]