Thon Hotels is a hotel chain born in Norway in 1989. It is now known as the 3rd largest hotel chain in Norway, although operations extend in Belgium and Netherlands as well. It is managed by the Olav Thon Group (Olav Thon Gruppen). The man behind the real estate group, Olav Thon, was listed in Forbes list of billionaires as the 198th richest person in the world in 2013. At that time, his net worth was already $6 billion, making him Norways’ richest person even to this day. There are 60 Thon Hotels in three countries which all began by Thon’s hobby of collecting hotels as early as 1974. In that year, he bought Hotel Bristol in Oslo. In 1983, he bought his second hotel which was followed by the foundation of his own Rainbow Hotel in 1989. The Rainbow Hotel had 10 branches which paved the way for the rapid growth of Olav Thon Group’s hotel acquisitions.

It was 1995 when Thon decided to extend the hotel chain to Brussels by purchasing two hotels. That marked its presence in the Belgian market. When the new millennium came, Olav Thon Group was already enjoying remarkable revenue from its operations. 5 years into the 21st century, they rebranded Rainbow Hotels to Thon Hotels which is now the household name for lodging in Norway, Belgium, and the Netherlands.