From December 5th to 7th, the 9th Glorious Global Investment Carnival 2025 opened grandly in Shenzhen. Among them, in the Glorious Group's Annual Excellence Company Selection, Atour Lifestyle Holdings (ATAT.US) won the 'Most Valuable Investment Value of the Year' award based on the performance growth and stock price performance over the past year.

It is reported that the 'Most Valuable Investment Value of the Year' award focuses on the revenue and net income growth of Chinese concept companies, and comprehensively evaluates business scale, business model, management capability, innovation capability, etc. This award reflects recognition of the profitability and stable investment return of Chinese concept companies, as well as a high affirmation of their operational capabilities. The final results of this selection were obtained through quantitative data analysis and expert jury review.

Performance and stock prices both rise, highly favored by investors.

It is reported that Atour Group was established in 2013, starting as a lifestyle brand group in lodging, advocating the 'China Experience'. It owns six new lodging brands: A.T.HOUSE, Sah Hotel, Atour S Hotel, Atour Hotel, Atour X Hotel, Light Hotel, and retail brands 'αTOUR PLANET Atour Planet' and 'SAVHE Sah'. On November 11, 2022, Atour was successfully listed on the Nasdaq in the USA.

Since its listing, Atour's stock price has risen by more than 70%. Looking at this year, in the highly competitive mid to high-end hotel market environment, the company has significantly outperformed the overall industry sector, demonstrating its outstanding performance in the capital markets.

From a third-party perspective, several institutions have given high praise to Atour. Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, and Bank of America Securities have raised the company's target price and maintained a 'buy' rating. Among them, Bank of America Securities recently raised Atour's target price to $36.

The recognition from investors mainly comes from the growth potential of Atour Lifestyle Holdings and the confidence provided by the business performance.

The latest financial report shows that in the third quarter of 2024, revenue increased by 46.7% year-on-year to 1.899 billion yuan; adjusted net income increased by 41.2% year-on-year to 0.384 billion yuan; adjusted EBITDA increased by 40.0% year-on-year to 0.532 billion yuan.

Investors are concerned about hotel performance indicators, which have shown steady results. The third-quarter RevPAR is 380 yuan, ADR is 456 yuan, and OCC is as high as 80.3%. In addition, Atour's retail business GMV increased by 107.7% year-on-year to 0.566 billion yuan, maintaining a high growth trend.

It is evident that despite the high base brought by strong demand for summer travel in the same period last year, coupled with negative factors such as adverse weather in the third quarter of this year, Atour is still able to maintain strong operational resilience.

Considering this year's stock price performance, Atour clearly has a higher risk resistance as an investment target. With expectations of future performance support, Atour is expected to continue to lead the industry in the capital markets.

Against the backdrop of improving industry prosperity, consolidating core advantages and enjoying growth.

In the long term, for companies to achieve sustained improvement in business strength and continuously demonstrate investment value, they cannot do without two core elements: a good track and an excellent business model.

Focusing on Atour, from the perspective of the track, the hotel and travel industry is continuously supported in policy orientation and market demand, maintaining growth.

Chain hotel industry is an important sector in the consumer services, according to the report from the China Development Research Institute, the situation in the first half of 2023-2024 shows that offline consumption and contact-driven consumption are gradually recovering, the proportion of service consumption is rebounding and continuously increasing.

This year's policies are promoting China to accelerate the construction of a tourism power, accelerate the transformation and upgrading of the Chinese tourism market, which will bring new growth to the hotel and travel industry. On the demand side, consumers are increasingly focusing on high-quality lodging and more comprehensive travel experiences, with the proportion of hotel stays during the journey continuously extending, and there is a strong demand for high-quality hotels.

This means that the entire hotel and travel industry, as well as players like Atour Lifestyle Holdings, are expected to continue to enjoy policy and market dividends.

In the long term, China's chain hotel market has sufficient growth potential. By the end of 2023, the domestic hotel chain penetration rate had increased to 41%, while the hotel chain penetration rate in the United States is around 73%, indicating significant room for improvement, providing a solid foundation for Atour's long-term growth.

From the perspective of Atour's business model:

On one hand, some research reports indicate that post-pandemic consumers are more focused on lifestyle and personalized experiences, and mid-to-high-end brands with service experience features are expected to benefit first.

Atour focuses on the 'Chinese Experience' and, based on a deep understanding of consumers' true needs, further accelerates the expansion of its hotel network. The number of newly opened hotels in Q3 reached 140, a year-on-year increase of 72.8%, once again breaking the record for the number of hotels opened in a single quarter. By the end of September, the number of operating hotels had reached 1533, with 732 projects in the pipeline, and the willingness of franchisees to sign contracts continues to strengthen.

Minmetals Securities pointed out in its latest research report that the chain hotel industry is a highly standardized and strong cyclical industry, an increase in franchising can effectively weaken the cyclical nature of hotels, rapidly expand and increase income, while also enhancing risk resistance. As a leader in the mid-to-high-end chain hotel sector, Atour's future growth is therefore more certain.

On the other hand, Atour has built a deep sleep scene ecosystem around the combination of 'hotels + retail', creating a differentiated experiential barrier.

The brand image shaping brought by retail explosive products will promote the increase in hotel repeat occupancy rate; at the same time, the sticky flow brought by member interaction will provide stable support for the long-term growth of hotel business. Meanwhile, the retail business will effectively weaken the cyclical nature of hotels, enhancing Atour's growth certainty.

Conclusion:

Atour has won the award for 'Most Valuable Chinese Stocks of the Year', which is well-deserved. The company's business performance and capital market performance are commendable, fully reflecting its deep cultivation in high-quality tracks externally and internally building a sustainable long-term growth business model. In this process, Atour continues to enhance its investment value, leaving ample room for future development. Market investors may as well be patient and wait to see.