New and seasoned hoteliers, as well as a number of students from Historic Black Colleges & Universities (HBCUs), descended on Miami for NABHOOD’s 27th annual International African American Hotel Ownership & Investment Summit & Trade Show at the Miami Marriott Biscayne Bay. Informative educational sessions were held as many hotel deals were discussed privately during the three-day event.
Perhaps the summit’s highlight was the fifth-annual Thomas J. Baltimore Jr. Distinguished Speaker Series chat between Andy Ingraham, founder/president/CEO, NABHOOD, and Sheila Johnson, founder/CEO, Salamander Collection.
Ingraham started off by asking Johnson what her inspiration is.
“It’s the team of people around me, and, also, I’m having fun,” she said. “I’m in the third act of my life. A lot of people don’t know this, but I started out as a concert violinist and stayed in the music business for a long time before cofounding Black Entertainment Television [BET]. Then, after selling that to Viacom, I had the means to be able to get into the hotel business. And unlike many of you here, I didn’t know anything about hotels.”
What led her to the industry was her interest in traveling. “I have been in some of the finest hotels, and I just fell in love with luxury,” she said. “I knew that in order to start a company, I had to hire the best people I possibly could. That is the first lesson that everybody needs to learn: Swallow hard and understand your vulnerabilities and limitations. I wanted to make sure that I had the very best people in the hotel industry to help me build the company, and it’s a group of people who can share my vision and don’t come in with their own agenda.”
The Salamander Collection has grown to seven luxury hotels and resorts in the U.S. and the Caribbean. The first was Salamander Middleburg Resort & Spa in Virginia. She told Ingraham and the audience how that came about.
“When I decided to built the Salamander in Middleburg, VA, I was so excited,” she explained. “This town was financially struggling to stay alive as a small historic town. I had moved there, and I decided to build this horse farm, but then a broker came to me and said, ‘There’s 340 acres of land for sale that belong to the late Pamela Harriman, and it borders the town of Middleburg.’ So I decided to walk up there and sure enough, the light bulb went off, and I decided I know exactly what I’m going to do. There was this white space between Washington, DC, and Northern Virginia where there was just no destination resort.”
The resort, she said, “was a place that needed to happen not only for people in the Washington DC, area to just escape, but also I thought about what was going on on the hill with the politicians. This could be a respite area, and they can have their meetings there.”
Getting financing to build the resort was not without its challenges. Johnson recalled, “I remember going to the bank that held all my money, and I said [to a banker], “I want to meet with you all because I want you to help me with a dream that I have.’ They never took me seriously. I got up and left and said, ‘I’m pulling every cent out of this bank.’ So, I did. They did not take me seriously because I’m a woman and an African-American, but my new bank serves me well.”
Development doings
Earlier in the day, development executives from Hilton, Marriott, Wyndham and IHG took to the stage for a session called “Executive Development Session—When will the market be back?” to discuss a number of topics.
Moderated by Stacy Silver, president, Silver Hospitality Group, the panel included Bill Fortier, SVP, development, Americas, Hilton; Chip Ohlsson, EVP/chief development officer, Wyndham Hotels & Resorts; Adam Sherer, SVP, development, Marriott International; and Julienne Smith, chief development officer, Americas, IHG Hotel & Resorts.
The executives were asked which of their brands have recently been popular with developers.
Smith replied, “It’s always been—and I imagine it’ll remain so—Holiday Inn Express, followed by Candlewood Suites. I would say they are the strongest today.”
Fortier picked Home2 Suites by Hilton, adding, “We just started two new brands this year, Spark and Project H3, which we’re trying to figure out the final name. There’s like four or five [choices]left, and I have to pick one.”
Sherer, who mentioned the addition earlier last month of the MGM Collection with Marriott Bonvoy, which added 17 MGM properties to his company’s portfolio, named Project MidX Studios, Marriott’s new midscale extended-stay brand launched in June, as the most popular today. “I’ve got a few of my developers really interested in that one,” he added.
Ohlsson brought up two brands—the new ECHO Suites Extended Stay by Wyndham and the Trademark Collection by Wyndham soft brand—and chose the former, which already has more than 260 hotels in the pipeline in the U.S. and Canada.
