Skift Take

The Omni model could have a stodgy popularity in some quarters. However the U.S. owner-operator is an attention-grabbing contrarian in the way it’s asset-heavy and unafraid of constructing ballrooms.

Sean O’Neill

Omni Inns & Resorts isn’t your father’s hospitality group — actually and figuratively talking.

• Robert Rowling just lately handed the day-to-day oversight to his youngest son Blake Rowling through their Texas holding firm TRT. The youthful Rowling (rhymes with “bowling”) goals to maneuver the Omni model additional upscale into the luxurious class.
• Final yr, Kurt Alexander turned president of Omni, changing Peter Strebel, who moved to the position of chairman.
• The corporate, with a portfolio of greater than 50 properties, ended 2022 on the prime finish of “higher upscale,” which means that its common price as a model was “very near $300 an evening.”
• It should launch a model refresh this yr together with roughly $250 million in renovations to justify even greater nightly charges.

Omni represents a contrarian play.

• Omni owns and operates the vast majority of its lodges and resorts. That’s in distinction with names, corresponding to Marriott, Accor, and Hilton, which have disposed of their properties to turn out to be “asset mild.” (For context, see my earlier column “Resort Group Religion in Asset Gentle Mannequin Opens Hole for Upstarts.”)
• Omni is closely invested in conference lodges. That’s in distinction with what number of lodge firms aren’t constructing new massive complexes with ballrooms.
• It retains its debt low, which is uncommon within the sector.
• Omni claims to carry its personal towards the larger names in lodges with a lot greater loyalty applications. A heavy tech funding this yr could assist it additional.

Omni has been crawling up the chain scale in high quality and popularity for just a few a long time.

• The Rowling household purchased the model at an public sale in early 1996. The reported $500 million deal included 9 lodges and administration contracts for 26 others. Many of the properties wanted renovation, and the model’s popularity was uneven.
• Round 2013, the holding firm purchased a half dozen properties, principally golf resorts, from KSL Capital Companions for a reported $900 million.
• In 2021, Omni bought and de-branded 5 suburban lodges to double down on conventions, resorts, and landmarks. In the present day some observers consider it in all probability must shed just a few extra of its older properties to have a persistently upscale property profile.

Omni is on a constructing spree.

• Its growth work consists of Omni Tempe Resort at Arizona State College (ASU), a $125 million property set to open in April, and Omni PGA Frisco Resort, a $520 million property slated to open in Could. Additionally within the works are Omni Fort Lauderdale Resort and an Omni in Pontoque, Mexico.
• Omni Inns & Resorts has been refurbishing and renovating this yr. Key restorations and main redevelopments embody The Omni Homestead Resort (a $140 million renovation), Omni Austin (it ripped out and changed visitor rooms and the foyer and moved and enhanced the restaurant and bar), Omni Charlottesville Resort (ongoing), Omni Severin Resort in Indianapolis, Omni Tucson Nationwide Resort, Omni Interlocken Resort in Denver, and Omni Orlando Resort at ChampionsGate.
• “Our objective is to get our portfolio all on the identical high quality as our new builds throughout the subsequent two years,” mentioned Peter Strebel, chairman.
• Its new-build properties intention for a recent, higher-caliber look. Its new construct openings have been in Fort Price (2009), Dallas (2011), Nashville (2013), Louisville (2018), Oklahoma Metropolis (2021), Boston (2021), and the upcoming Tempe (2023).

Omni has leaned into constructing venues to draw massive teams at a time when its bigger rivals are pulling again from constructing 1,000-room properties.

• “We’re nonetheless constructing huge lodges,” Strebel mentioned. “The PGA Frisco we’re constructing is a 540-room lodge. We’ve an 800-room lodge beneath building in Fort Lauderdale. Florida has by no means had a really dynamic conference heart, however Broward County’s billion-dollar expanded one might be. We consider in sure markets there’s demand for higher-end group-focused lodges.”
• Strebel argues that as different gamers haven’t invested within the house, Omni has turn out to be a darling for its reliability for group bookings.
• “We’re seeing lots of last-minute massive company enterprise bookings,” Strebel mentioned. “As an example, Dallas downtown, a thousand-room lodge, had an enormous cancellation about eight weeks in the past. We refilled it with an enormous group simply pretty much as good on price immediately.”
• “We’ve seen the company group demand for our PGA course resorts be off the charts,” Strebel mentioned.

Golf is one other theme for the corporate that has helped it with word-of-mouth advertising and marketing.

• Bob Rowling had thought of a profession as a professional golfer, and his wager on golf to assist the corporate’s growth has paid off whereas different manufacturers centered on different sports activities. It looks like you may’t attend or watch on TV knowledgeable golf season with out publicity to the Omni model.
• His agency has performed main renovations to Omni Tucson Nationwide Resort and Omni Homestead, every residence to championship programs.
• The corporate’s now ending the event of Omni PGA Frisco Resort might be opening in partnership with PGA of America alongside their headquarters to create the brand new fashionable residence of golf.
• Omni has marketed closely with reside and broadcast skilled golf, matches, which has helped with its model recognition amongst enterprise vacationers.

Supposedly, small lodge manufacturers like Omni can’t thrive in a world of Marriotts with a whole lot of tens of millions of members of their loyalty applications driving shopper demand, typically through co-branded bank cards.

However Omni believes that expertise can assist it stage the taking part in discipline considerably.

• “We’ve seen our share of our direct bookings undoubtedly improve prior to now few years,” Strebel mentioned. “We’ve misplaced share within the third-party web sites, however we’ve overcompensated with bookings through omnihotels.com.”
• “For years, our tech stack has been fragmented,” Strebel mentioned. “We’re doing a tech refresh. Our objective is that, once you e book a spa, once you e book a golf course, once you make a lodge reservation, and once you make a eating reservation, it’s all going to be put in a single huge database. We’ll find out about who you might be and add to your visitor profile.”
• Omni is adopting Oracle’s cloud-based property administration system and its cloud-based point-of-sale system for meals and beverage gross sales.
• Omni is adopting Agilysys’s ResortSuite to get its ancillary gross sales of spa, golf, and retail within the cloud, too.
• In just a few months, it’s going to roll out a brand new reserving engine from P3.

Omni is wanting past tech and bodily constructing upgrades to assist command greater charges from shoppers. It’s additionally retooling its staffing and advertising and marketing.

• “We’re proper now rolling out an entire model new coaching program for our associates to raise our ranges of service,” Strebel mentioned.
• “We’re additionally on the identical time reevaluating all of our facilities and towels and sheets and pillows and blankets, our workers uniforms, and so forth.,” Strebel mentioned.
• “We’re revamping our advertising and marketing and the story we inform,” Strebel mentioned. “Within the subsequent 4 months or so, we’re popping out with an entire new model emblem, a brand new model feel and appear, and a brand new model story.”

Omni has stored its debt load down in an business that usually gorges on debt.

• It has funded the entire present buildings beneath building out of its money movement.
• “The sweetness is that we have now house owners that reinvest the cash into the enterprise so we don’t should exit for borrowing,” Strebel mentioned. “We might be strategic in timing our new builds and renovations for optimum instances versus when rates of interest are in higher form.”
• “We do have some debt,” Strebel mentioned. “We principally have to pay about 10 % of our present EBITDA [earnings before interest, depreciation, taxes, and amoritization] that goes to pay our present debt, and a few of that’s coming due within the subsequent couple of years.” It could look to roll over the debt later this yr.
• “We didn’t lose cash in 2020,” Strebel mentioned. “That’s partly as a result of we had full management and little debt. We might shut down inside two weeks and provide good compensation plans for our associates. Then in late April, after we noticed demand coming again for resorts, we might put a plan in place and open each resort by the tip of Could. We had a gangbusters summer season partly as a result of we hung onto our associates as a result of we might have direct management in treating them properly.”

CORRECTION: I initially mentioned Blake was the eldest, as an alternative of the youngest, son. Sorry.

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