Boutique hotel The Loutrel has benefited from some of the highest leisure rates ever in the Charleston, South Carolina, market since opening on Nov. 1.

General Manager Gregg Hilker said the Charleston market in 2021 started out soft in terms of performance but once spring arrived, "the floodgates opened."

"It was just a different world compared to where I've seen my peers; I do feel we are in a great position here in Charleston," he said.

Managed by Charlestowne Hotels, The Loutrel's proximity to Atlanta, Raleigh-Durham and Florida has helped drive that leisure demand.

"The drive-in [travel] is definitely a big part of it, but we've seen the airport in the latter half [of 2021] hit 2019 levels. The flights are full, and there are new airlines that have come to the market," he said. "It's really set the tone for a big recovery in this market."

In a Q&A with Hotel News Now, Hilker shared more on business mix outlook, sales and marketing strategies at The Loutrel.

This city has a lot of garden appeal and that's what the inspiration for the Loutrel has become. We call our lobby the veranda lounge, which is very much a veranda in a sense of what you would think it should be — garden-inspired, open spaces, high windows, a lot of light. It's a really fresh atmosphere when you walk into a smaller boutique hotel, bringing the outside in.

The rooftop is a massive area ... to experience the city from afar. It will be open to our hotel guests and their guests, so it's a very specific space for our guests to enjoy without being overrun by other folks coming in from Charleston. We will have bar services and offerings on the roof but not a bar-centric atmosphere. It's more of a rooftop lounge.

There's always that fear of alienating someone. We want our locals to feel comfortable coming to the hotel. We're in an area where there's a lot of residential access. ... We'd like to see locals utilizing all spaces, but at the same time, we want to make sure that our guests experience it without feeling like it's just locals only.

I'm the type person who is tired of hearing that "because of the global supply chain issues, we can't do this, can't do that." We went into [opening this hotel] knowing that's always going to be on the forefront of issues, so what are we going to do differently in that we don't say no and we don't say that we don't have it?

We've overcome some different shortages and accomplished things to open this hotel. Some of our drapery had not come in and some of our artwork had been damaged in the process. Those are things that we can overcome without the guest ever even knowing it was an issue.

How we're overcoming [staffing challenges] is finding solutions for our employees. We pay for our employees' parking, we offer complimentary meals for our employees. I know those are little things, but it goes a long way in making an employee feel well-respected and that we want them here.

We think there's going to be some of that pent-up demand that starts tapering off. Some of our sales and marketing strategies will need to be a little more aggressive in capturing occupancy versus promotional strategies or discount strategies. We also think the competition is going to be intensified. So I think there's a way to structure ourselves uniquely. We have to make sure that people know who we are and get our name out there. We don't have the repeat guests yet so that's our big thing when up against competition that's been in the market for years. There's a really healthy market for the luxury hotels in Charleston. We want to be able to help capture some of that.

We will focus continually on the transient traveler; I don't think [that] will ever go away from the Charleston [market].

As we all know, the first line of defense is to make sure service levels and details are being taken care of. If we're doing those things right, it makes [monitoring] online reviews a little bit smoother. Being that we are new, it's one of those things where we're still gaining some ground on our online reviews. We want to respond to every single one regardless of the nature of the review. We want to be as positive as we can to our guests. ... That's something we'll just have to push and work harder towards as we get more and more [reviews].

[The sales and marketing team] agrees that the social traveler in Charleston has already come back. The weddings and the events that surround the social traveler are definitely happening. We are seeing that from our inquiries. For the new year, we see that as being a big piece of the puzzle for what our guest [mix] will look like and how to utilize the hotel.

I definitely think there's still going to be that well-traveled guest that can't get to Europe because there's so many restrictions, so I think we will see those guests coming to markets like Charleston.

There's [more] smaller group settings that are going to happen in 2022, where it's 10, 20 and 25 guests coming in from a particular business.

To summarize it best, the Loutrel offers a fresh take on what's considered a boutique hotel. We have 50 rooms, but it feels very charming and still at the same time luxurious. You walk into our lobby — the veranda lounge — and we have 60-foot-high ceilings, floor-to ceiling windows and it just feels light, fresh and a different take on what I consider a smaller-sized hotel.

One of the things we always talk about internally with our team is we want to allow our guests to feel that this is a home away from home, but not have that connotation in their head that it's a bed and breakfast. It's meant to be refined, luxurious hotel.

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