LODGING brings you the second installment of our three-part Possession Sequence, offering proprietor views on numerous sizzling subjects and trade traits. For this installment, Amit Patel, managing companion for Rama Papermill Inns, discusses his expertise as a franchisor and his firm’s conversion and renovation of the Prolonged Keep America Suites in Bristol, Virginia. The third article on this sequence, which can seem within the coming months, will element extra insights from the proprietor’s perspective.
Hoteliers with main branded accommodations of their portfolios aren’t accustomed to getting hands-on service from the franchise firms they companion with. It’s for that purpose that Amit Patel is bullish on Prolonged Keep America (ESA), to not point out the long-term keep phase basically, and is eyeing additional development with the corporate.
Patel—who’s managing companion for Rama Papermill Inns, a Knoxville, TN-based proprietor/operator with 16 accommodations—in 2023 added two ESA properties to his portfolio and hasn’t appeared again. He mirrored on his constructive expertise with the Charlotte, NC-based franchisor.
“I like working with them very a lot. They work intently with particular person homeowners and operators they usually put within the time from all sides of it; mainly from advertising to gross sales and direct billing,” he mentioned.
Patel went on to offer some concrete examples of the franchisor’s day-to-day involvement.
“If we’ve a gaggle coming their account gross sales supervisor will e-mail us personally and say, ‘hey, we’ve this group coming and let’s make certain we maintain them and the rooms have to be there. All the pieces must be taken care of.’ These are all particulars that they deal with for us from a advertising standpoint and to assist get the enterprise there. Different massive franchise firms don’t do these sorts of issues,” he mentioned.
Patel’s expertise with the model started with the conversion of a property in Bristol, Virginia, right into a 120-room Prolonged Keep America Suites, which opened in August of 2023. Seeking to capitalize on growing demand for extended-stay choices, in addition to a dearth of those properties within the area, Patel approached ESA about changing the property from a transient accommodations to an ESA.
He touted the corporate’s involvement all through the redo and repositioning of the lodge.
“For the renovation, they got here and visited us and helped from beginning the conversion to the opening of the lodge. They’d have weekly calls, do website visits and maintain all of these particulars to ease the conversion course of,” he mentioned.
A few of these particulars embrace a revamped foyer, guestrooms and newly painted exterior. The scaled down foyer was enhanced with new flooring, counter tops and repainted ceilings and partitions. In the meantime, throughout the guestroom the corporate was capable of achieve house so as to add kitchens by successfully eliminating the closets.
Mark Williams, managing director, franchise growth, ESA, famous of Patel, “he enhanced every part on the property.”
He additional touted the renovation that took near a yr on account of a great deal of trial and error across the structure of the guestrooms.
“We went from an exterior hall, transient asset throughout the financial system phase to a recent property that pulls a special [extended-stay] clientele and the property is performing extraordinarily effectively,” mentioned Williams.
On the subject of efficiency, Patel identified that the influence of flying the ESA flag has been indeniable. He famous that because the lodge modified flags occupancy went from somewhat over 30 % to roughly 75 %. He additionally endorsed the model’s environment friendly, low-cost mannequin sustaining that working bills are “very low” for the accommodations with minimal staffing, workplace hours and housekeeping.
In the meantime, this previous October Patel and his firm assumed possession of the 72-room Prolonged Keep America Suites in Knoxville, Tennessee. Since that point, the lodge has been operating at higher than 90 % occupancy, in line with Patel.
He emphasised the model’s flexibility and private involvement as being key to fostering an excellent relationship. For instance, he famous when he initially purchased the Knoxville property from company in an public sale there was a problem with the sprinkler system he needed to place wherein might have probably resulted in him “not getting the flag.”
Nevertheless, after getting some suggestions from the corporate on how they might need to have it executed, Patel “offered it to them” they usually have been capable of work it out.
“They got here down and labored with us. We did the set up of the sprinkler [system] and every part was good,” he famous.
His expertise with the property has been so good that Patel has since signed a take care of ESA to assemble one other property in Knoxville and is at the moment within the means of securing the land.
Having gotten his begin in hospitality in 2006 working along with his father in Lebanon, Tennessee, Patel began Rama Papermill Inns roughly a decade in the past right here within the U.S. Along with the pair of ESA properties, the corporate’s portfolio consists of quite a few financial system and midscale manufacturers.
In wanting forward Patel acknowledged the plain upside of the extended-stay phase in addition to the ESA model, asserting, “I’d like to develop with ESA.”
