Park Plaza Hotels has been created through the combination of the hotel management and operating interests of the PPHE Group with certain hotel assets of the Red Sea Group. Members of these two groups, Euro Plaza and Molteno remain the largest Shareholders.  The PPHE Group and the Red Sea Group have an 18-year history of working together in the hospitality industry.

The first business co-operation between the PPHE Group and the Red Sea Group was in 1989, with the Mandarin Park Plaza in Eindhoven, The Netherlands, which was acquired by the Red Sea Group and managed by the PPHE Group. In 1993, the Red Sea Group and Elscint, a subsidiary of Elbit Medical Imaging Ltd., a NASDAQ listed company, jointly acquired the Victoria Hotel Amsterdam, with the PPHE Group again acting as manager. This was the first of a number of joint projects between the Red Sea Group and Elscint, which include the Park Plaza Sherlock Holmes, the Park Plaza Victoria and Park Plaza Riverbank hotels in London as well as the Park Plaza Utrecht hotel in The Netherlands.

In 1994, the PPHE Group obtained rights to use the Park Plaza brand in the Benelux countries, the UK and Israel from its creator and then owner.

In 2000, the PPHE Group entered into a territorial licence agreement to operate the Park Plaza brand in a further 51 countries and took over the management of a number of hotels in Germany and Hungary.

In 2002, the Park Plaza brand was sold to Carlson, subject to the PPHE Group territorial licence agreement. Later that year the territorial licence agreement was renegotiated and the PPHE Group entered into a strategic marketing and reservations alliance with Carlson.

In 2007, the company successfully floated on the London AIM Stock Exchange. The floatation saw a significant restructure of management within Park Plaza Hotels and also allowed the full purchase of the art’otel brand