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For years, the hotel’s third-party managers have stayed behind the scenes, staffing and operating the property on behalf of the owners. But Springboard Hospitality, which operates 40 hotels in 10 US states, aims to become a consumer-facing brand that sells lifestyle hotels directly to travelers.
Springboard is relaunching its website with a redesign that spotlights the lifestyle hotels it manages and offers destination, travel and event planning tools.
The move comes amidst the rapid growth of the small company based in Los Angeles and Honolulu. The company added six of his hotels in the U.S. to its portfolio in 2022, and now he has more than 6,000 rooms, combining independent properties with those “flagged” by brands of giant hotel groups. I manage.
CEO Ben Rafter said: “We want properties that tell stories.”
Rafter has grown and sold hotel and technology businesses repeatedly. (His start-up, Innerlinx, later called Livebid, was acquired by Amazon.) The last hotel management company he headed, Aqua Hospitality, sold its portfolio of 58 hotels to his Marriott. Sold to Vacations Worldwide.
In 2018, Rafter, along with a handful of other private investors, acquired OLS Hotels & Resorts, which owned less than 10 West Coast properties, primarily owned by real estate investment trusts Pebblebrook and LaSalle. Rafter’s team later renamed it Springboard His Hospitality to better capture their ambitions.
“There must be a growing segment of travelers who crave unique experiences, so we wanted to expand the lifestyle possibilities,” says Rafter.
Springboard is one of the few management companies focused on lifestyle hotels. These hotels have not experienced a merger, public offering, or private equity acquisition by a large company. The company’s management sees it as a strength of agility rather than a vulnerability to be defeated.
“When asked what our competitive advantage is compared to our peers, the most important thing is that as an owner, when you are working with us, you know who you are working with. ‘ said Rafter. “We’re not trying to grow to 500 properties.”
Small is not a virtue in the eyes of a roll-up play like Einbridge Hospitality. Aimbridge Hospitality is a large third-party management company that is able to achieve favorable terms with companies such as Marriott and achieve efficiencies of scale.
“Aimbridge, like its peers, sells something different,” says Rafter. “It’s great at what they do, and they’re good at it. But it’s almost completely different. It’s a scale game. You can manage all Residence Inns from here to the ends of the world.”
“But working with giants comes with a lot of manuals and rulebooks that come with it,” says Rafter. “You can’t get a CEO who covers all properties throughout the year and knows the recovery or pace of demand in the market on any given day. They probably don’t care as much about how they customize their lifestyle properties.”
Executives see Springboard growing to about 60 facilities with just over 10,000 rooms.
The company’s expansion plans include entering the drive-to market at the gateway to the West Coast, while continuing to expand on the East Coast. Independent lifestyle properties in highly sought-after destinations have a market share of around 25%. Such market share will help create the efficiency dynamics to consistently drive premium, high-margin room rates necessary to support the necessary maintenance and revitalization of the lifestyle segment. .
Rafter also sees opportunities to expand lifestyle hotels into unsegmented markets such as Anchorage, Alaska; the Ozarks, Missouri and Arkansas; and Waikiki, Hawaii.
Then what? Rafter speculates that the next level of growth is monetizing that demand more effectively. If Springboard knows there will be a certain threshold of guests in a certain week at a certain destination, it can’t create an add-on experience like a sunset cruise to improve the overall take. do you
play tech
Like many third-party management companies, Springboard assists owners with operational, marketing, revenue, capital planning, and sales goals. Still, it claims to stand out from most of its peers when it comes to technology.
Essentially, you’ll have an intelligence platform that selects a la carte recommended tools for tasks like revenue management and decides what rates to set based on supply and demand.
Rafter has previously worked for several tech companies, but he doesn’t embody technology for technology’s sake. Rather than opting for cutting-edge technology, he prefers a set of software systems that work well together and quickly give hotel operators a clear and complete picture of their operations.
“Our approach is to identify which technologies we think work best, especially for independent properties, and make sure they all interact well with each other,” said Rafter. “I feel sorry for owners who have invested in all these technologies and none of them work right, because the glue that enables efficiency and profitability is really the integration of 20 guest messaging technologies. can be for sale, but few avoid wasting team members’ time, or worse, hiring team members or needing more No. We probably want to address only one across the system.”
independents have a place
Springboard works with properties flagged by the brands of large hotel groups, but also prides itself on having a well-trained team to support independent hotels.
Lacking efficiencies of scale, co-branded credit cards, and the loyalty program of Global Hotel Group, independent hotel owners are under tremendous economic and competitive pressure, but Rafter says the most robust We believe the company will thrive for decades to come. .
“In Hawaii, for example, we spent three months discussing the brand’s requirement to have coat closets in guest rooms at one of the properties we managed,” says Rafter. “It’s Hawaii. Property requires surfboard storage.”
Springboard is one of the supporters of Curator Hotels & Resorts. The association is primarily designed to level the playing field for independent hotels to some extent with large companies.
Springboard has a very wide range of properties in terms of size and range of services, which is why we take a customized approach to contracts and partnerships. We typically invest in all properties we manage, but this is not required. Some owners prefer incentive structures based on metrics, such as tying rewards to their cash flow growth rate.
“A typical contract that takes X percent of EBITDA [earnings before interest, taxes, deprecitation, or amortization] or GOPs [gross operating profit] I think it’s outdated,” said Rafter.
While you may prefer to plug and play springboards for sale, some projects take two to three years and involve meticulous planning with owners, local designers, and local eateries. Renovate and reopen the hotel with more experience. Being programming driven, the contract should reflect that cost and timescale.
“We are one of the few players operating in a completely self-contained space where we can enhance our operational and technical capabilities with a highly customized approach,” said Rafter.
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