NASHVILLE, Tennessee — When Remington Hotels announced its $26 million purchase of Chesapeake Hospitality in April, the deal gave Remington growth in scale, climbing to 121 properties in 28 states.
But while speaking with Hotel News Now at the 2022 Hotel Data Conference, Divisional Vice President of Revenue Strategy Gilbert Arredondo said one of the biggest benefits of the deal has been the addition of talent and expertise from Chesapeake's team.
"It's been a learning [experience] to acquire another company, but the awesome thing about the Chesapeake [deal] is the people we acquired are amazing," he said.
Arredondo said one of the pleasant surprises from integration has been how well the revenue teams complement each other between Remington and Chesapeake. The varied experience of the two teams has been helpful as they look for continued growth.
The Chesapeake team "worked with different types of ownership groups than we did, and those owners had different expectations than we did," Arredondo said. "We've been able to [meld] together what we do and kind of combine it together. We're really heavy in analytics, really heavy in data. We have all that, and we were able to kind of give them that platform."
Arredondo said he's benefited from Chesapeake's different approach to budgeting and forecasting, and overall the Remington team has grown from the fresh perspective.
"They were a lot stronger in certain systems than we were, so they brought a total package of knowledge over to us, and so it's helped us to be more agile. And it's helped us to just really kind of grow and expand outside of our little window."
For more from HNN's interview with Arredondo, watch the video above.