ATLANTA — Vision Hospitality Group didn’t add a single hotel to its portfolio last year, the “first time that’s happened in a long time,” CEO Mitch Patel said.
Instead of feeling down about the barren transaction market, Patel said, Vision used the year as an opportunity to reset the company and bolster its values. Patel sat down for an interview with Hotel News Now during the Hunter Hotel Investment Conference.
“We doubled-down on our culture. We doubled-down on our team and infrastructure and making sure that we are producing the best results that we can of each individual hotel that we have in terms of guest satisfaction, market share and profitability,” he said. “We knew that growth [was] about to come.”
Vision Hospitality has six hotels under construction and is looking to add three to four more hotels that would break ground by the end of 2024, Patel said. Altogether, there are 14 hotels in the company’s pipeline.
“We’re going to continue to move those projects forward and make sure that we start breaking ground at the opportune time,” he said. “Lending is not a slam dunk. But we have great relationships with so many lenders, so I’m not too worried about that.”
While the transaction market has been “very, very weak,” he said, there’s some optimism on the horizon.
“There’s a little bit more clarity … in the marketplace, and also with debt,” he said. “Last year was a very difficult year for that. It’s still challenging, but there’s opportunities out there, more this year than last year.”
For HNN’s full interview with Vision’s Mitch Patel, watch the video above.