To set itself apart from some of the larger global hotel brands, Omni Hotels & Resorts has been building on a growth strategy of consistency and differentiated luxury product that's been in place for 10 to 15 years, according to Chief Financial Officer Kurt Alexander.

As a standalone brand, Omni needs to offer something other than free room nights and broad distribution, and must fight against commoditization, Alexander said. It does so by "delivering extensive value and unique value through unique destinations [and] memorable experiences," he said.

At the end of February, Omni closed on a portfolio sale of five hotels — four in Texas and one in Florida — which was part of the brand's long-term strategy, Alexander said.

The sold hotels in Texas were the Omni Dallas Hotel at Park West, Omni Houston Hotel at West Side, Omni San Antonio Hotel at the Colonnade and Omni Austin Hotel at Southpark. The Omni Jacksonville Hotel in Florida was also part of the portfolio deal.

"We’ve built a lot of new hotels. In 2013, we acquired six hotels that all fit into this strategy," he said. "Part of any strategy is addition, and sometimes part of the strategy is subtraction. That’s how the sale of these [five] hotels fit into that."

Alexander said Omni often evaluates the financial return, and the customer and brand impact of an asset. He said the five hotels that were sold were doing fine from a financial standpoint, but they didn't have much brand or customer impact.

"We sit there and ask ourselves, ‘What do we need to do in order to move them up the brand axis and is that a good investment?'" he said. "Ultimately, we made the determination we weren’t sure there was anything we could do from a capital investment repositioning to get them on par with where the brand is and more importantly where the brand’s going. That reinforced the decision to sell them."

He added that the marketing materials for the sale were ready to go before the COVID-19 pandemic hit.

"We knew this was the direction we needed to go," he said. "When COVID hit, obviously our focus and attention got turned to more immediate concerns and how to fortify our existing portfolio. But after we got our feet underneath us in COVID, we listed all these marketing materials we had for this group of five hotels and said, ‘This is still the right direction for our company. There may be a slight discount on the sale, but we want to proceed with it.’"

Omni is based in Dallas and has a large footprint throughout Texas with 10 hotels open now and construction started on an 11th property, Alexander said.

The company enjoys doing business in Texas and "will continue to do a lot of it," he said, noting the sale of the four hotels in Texas was necessary to avoid market confusion.

"If you look at a market like Austin, prior to the sale, we had three hotels — Austin Southpark, which was sold [in the five-hotel sale], the Omni Austin Downtown and the Omni Barton Creek," he said. "When I talk about highly differentiated unique assets, both Austin Downtown and Barton Creek satisfy those requirements."

Alexander said the Omni Austin Hotel at Southpark is in a suburban market by the airport, "and the physical plant itself and the physical spaces, they couldn't really measure up to the Austin Downtown or Barton Creek."

"We wanted to avoid market confusion in a market like Austin," he said. "San Antonio is the same way; Dallas is the same way; and Houston. We had other assets in all those markets. And the other assets were quite frankly just better than the ones we sold."

Omni will use the profits from the five-portfolio sale to reinvest in the brand in the form of new-build hotels and existing assets, Alexander said.

The Omni Barton Creek, for example, reopened in May 2019 after a $150 million renovation.

"It has 493 guestrooms, four pools, close to 80,000 square feet of meeting space, spa, rooftop deck, four golf courses. It kind of has anything and everything you want," he said.

The brand also recently opened the Omni Oklahoma City, a $250 million convention center hotel project.

Alexander said Omni is focused on pursuing differentiated assets rather than growing in specific markets.

"We’re a family-owned business with a long-term investment horizon," he said. "We like to think about Omni as a lifetime decision for the hotel, so we’ll continue to grow with these differentiated products in unique destinations and cool locations."