In roughly the past week and a half, we've published two podcasts at HNN taking an inside look at hotel operator mergers and acquisitions.
The key part of both of these podcasts has been speaking to executive's who were directly involved in such deals, including former Chesapeake and Remington executive W. Chris Green and Prism founder Steve Van.
The common thread — or at the very least one of the common threads — between the discussions I had with both men is that an underrated piece of the "why" behind hotel operator mergers and acquisitions is the need to find strong, qualified leaders in the hospitality industry.
Green explaining the reasoning behind Remington Hospitality's 2022 acquisition of Chesapeake Hospitality, summed it up as a "war for talent," adding this: "It's hard to find 30 really great hoteliers at once."
And Green is right. It's hard to find the best people for your hotel company, and with the traditional pipelines drying up, it's only going to get harder.
Similarly, when Van was looking back somewhat wistfully at his nearly four decades at the helm of Prism Hotels & Resorts, a company he notes he never intended to sell, he seemed to take the most pride in the team he developed this.
He takes it as a personal sign of pride to see so many from the Prism team taking high ranking leadership positions across the hotel industry. In fact, he called out former Prism executive Alison Handy in particular noting her quick rise with Aimbridge Hospitality after Prism was bought by that company in late 2021.
With the latest wave of hotel management mergers and acquisitions just last week, that's the clearest sign possible that this war for talent is still raging behind the scenes, and it will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. In recent years, there's been a lot of talk about the labor environment in the hotel industry, particularly with union activity spiking and hotel strikes becoming commonplace in the last few years, but much of that discussion has revolved around line-level employees.
But labor shortages remain acute at both the middle and upper management levels, and the industry has taken some reputational hits coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic that will only make that worse.
I don't have any final suggestions on how to deal with that other than to say you should all continue to value your people, particularly those who have proven themselves to be special or unique contributors to your success and culture. Figuring out ways to keep them should be paramount, and if you keep seeing good people go out the door, the long-term success of your businesses likely depends on your ability to figure out the "why" behind that problem and addressing it as quickly as possible.
Let me know what you think on X, LinkedIn or via email.
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