Sonesta International Hotels Corp. has every intention of continuing its growth trajectory, but that also means further maturing as a hospitality organization, President and CEO Carlos Flores said.
In a video interview with Hotel News Now at the New York University International Hospitality Industry Investment Conference, Flores spoke about how his hotel brand and management company has handled the opportunities and challenges that come with a growing portfolio.
Sonesta has gone through “a tremendous amount” of growth over the past 18 months, he said. That includes its overall management footprint increasing from 58 to nearly 300 properties due to related real estate investment trust Service Properties Trust converting properties, as well as its acquisition of RLH Corp., bringing the total portfolio close to 1,200 hotels.
“It’s an exciting time for the company, and that excitement is palpable throughout the entire corporate track and most of our hotels that I’ve had the opportunity to visit since the acquisition,” he said.
Much of the growth was possible because the company always had a lot of ambitions, Flores said. Much of what the company was doing over the past five to 10 years was to prepare for significant scale.
“We’ve been ready to a certain extent for this, but with that level of change, we’re going through that metabolism process,” he said, adding that it was about preparing for what comes next.
Sonesta is now officially on the market and franchising its brands for the first time in the company’s 80-year history, and executives are thinking about what else is on the horizon, he said.
Over the next 12 to 24 months, Flores said he expects further growth will come from hotels converting from other brands and joining the Sonesta family. For long-term growth, conversions are only part of the story. The company is looking at new development and adaptive-reuse projects, such as its first urban extended-stay property in New Orleans’ central business district that used to be an apartment building.
“We’re really thinking outside of the box — new avenues to grow and extend our capability as a hotel brand, management and ownership,” he said.
With the growth Sonesta has experienced, its workforce grew from a little more than 3,000 employees domestically to more than 8,000 and headed toward 10,000, Flores said. Because of what Sonesta is and how it interacts with the market in general, it has been able to cultivate a good reputation with existing and future employees that is backed up by substance, he said.
“That's a big piece of it: What is your brand as an employer?” he said.
Given the current labor situation and how long it’s likely to last, U.S. hoteliers need to think about what labor needs hotels have and what is necessary to deliver a safe, clean place for people to stay and provide great hospitality, Flores said.
Some back-office functions traditionally tied to hotels could be outsourced to lessen the burden on hotel teams, allowing them to focus on what is core to their mission, he said. Sonesta set up a centralized shared services organization in Orlando to give staff more flexibility and focus on their primary needs by removing something that they previously thought they needed to handle.
For more of Flores' interview, watch the video above.