Aloft, Starwood Hotels' mid-market, boutique hotel brand, is set to open a number of new hotels in the coming year, several of them consisting of international properties.

Three of these will be in India, with properties planned for Chennai, India's fifth-largest city; Bangalore, India's 'Silicon Valley'; and Coimbatore, one of India's fastest-growing cities. Elsewhere, Europe's first Aloft hotel will be in Brussels, with an opening close to the city centre.

Closer to home, two new openings are planned for New York - one in Brooklyn and one in Harlem. Aloft, as a brand, caused something of a stir while still in launch mode, opening China's Aloft Beijing Haidian and Aloft Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates within its first 15 months.