Demand for hotel rooms is growing these days, mostly because of leisure travel. Paul Hammond is betting the trend doesn’t apply to just humans.

With Americans willing to spend big bucks on their pets, Hammond opened OneWorld Pet Resort in Anniston, Alabama, a 200-acre dog boarding facility set amid the southernmost reach of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Hammond is just one business owner renovating real estate with the idea that pet owners, when they go on vacation, will also splurge on a separate trip for their beloved furry family members.

Among all types of pet care, services like boarding are projected to have the highest growth rates, according to a November report by Morgan Stanley. Spending on all types of pets is predicted to rise 143% to $118 billion by 2030. Kennels like OneWorld are trying to capture that demand with outdoor space that seems more like a farm or resort rather than a typical boarding place, just as some hotels are updating their properties to be more welcoming to pet owners.

That means each kennel at OneWorld has a dog door leading outside for mutts to come and go as they please. The outside grounds have obstacle courses designed specifically for canines — and soon dog guides will lead trail runs, both on- and off-leash, along the wooded mountainside.

“People are weary of boarding kennels nowadays,” Hammond told CoStar News. “We hope to change that. When people go on vacation, they think their dog should have a vacation, too."

These luxury kennels are certain to face competition from different types of pet hotels. Companies like Best Friends Pet Hotel and PetSuites of America are rapidly growing nationwide and what they lack in outdoor amenities, they make up for with locations in heavily populated areas like Houston and Indianapolis, near large concentrations of dog owners.

Then there are hotels that allow pets. As more people adopted pets during the pandemic, once they started to travel again they sought places to stay where they could bring their pets. Many major hotel brands have recently updated pet policies to let human guests bring pets with them, Ed Robison, senior vice president of owner relations and development at HP Hotels, told Hotel News Now, a CoStar Group company, in August. It shows hotels are trying to adapt to the surge in pet travel, he said.

OneWorld is located in an area the city of Anniston has zoned for a variety of uses, unlike other city zoning categories that allow only certain types of development, such as residential or industrial. Zoning rules vary by city and many jurisdictions ban kennels in residential areas, according to Osborne Industries, a maker of equipment for kennels and zoos.

The added demand is playing out in a big way at OneWorld. Hammond, a native of Worcester, England, who spent years managing canine units for the British and American military, is aiming to have OneWorld offer what no hotel or luxury pet spa can — the chance for a dog to run free and get muddy outdoors.

He bought the property in December from the McClellan Development Authority for an undisclosed price, adding that his overall investment will eventually reach several million dollars.

“A lot of states and cities, they won’t approve or permit new dog boarding facilities,” Hammond said. “Some will restrict the number of kennels you can have. But ours, 131 kennels, it is unusual to be this extremely large.”

The site was ready-made to board dogs. Auburn University’s veterinary school built the 131 kennels in 2000 for its program that trained canines as bomb detectors. Because it was an academic program, the kennels were designed to surpass safety standards set by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee, an industry group administered by the National Institutes of Health, Hammond said. Auburn later moved the program to its main university campus.

Hammond invested in additional upgrades, such as resealing the flooring with epoxy and installing a new HVAC system. He plans to eventually add a grooming studio and obedience classes in a 7,000-square-foot building that came with the acreage. He also wants to create another kennel area where smaller dogs can be separated from bigger dogs.

Boarding for one night costs $30 and includes two meals. OneWorld also boards cats for $25 per night.

OneWorld is in a populated area, creating a ready-made customer base. The combined metropolitan populations of Anniston and nearby Gadsden, Alabama, is about 216,000 residents. The 9,540-student Jacksonville State University is eight miles north. And Anniston is about halfway between Atlanta and Birmingham.

Local officials have welcomed the luxury dog resort as a use for a property that's on the former site of Fort McClellan, an Army base that closed in 1999. A local development authority was created to find new uses for the 42,000-acre military base, which trained a half-million troops for World War II.

“The community has wanted a dog park out here and we are happy that they will be able to fill this need,” Julie Moss, executive director of the McClellan Development Authority, told CoStar News.

The Fort McClellan property has also attracted a modest amount of redevelopment, including apartments, offices, a youth sports complex and a four-acre rifle shooting range operated by Creedmoor Sports.

Its grounds include other historic buildings dating to the 1930s and 1940s, including a concert hall and homes built for military officers that have been renovated and sold as private residences.

But much of the McClellan property remains undeveloped. In fact, an early step after the base closing was the creation of the Mountain Longleaf National Wildlife Refuge on 9,000 acres of former base property.

That makes a good place for an outdoor dog kennel, said Hammond. He expects to draw customers from outside the immediate area because “people will travel to put their dogs in a safe environment” when they head out on vacation.