When integrating Benchmark Global Hospitality and later Provenance Hotels, the leadership team at Pyramid Global Hospitality wanted to make sure each didn't lose what made those companies unique.

In an interview about the company's progress since the late 2021 Pyramid-Benchmark merger and late 2022 Provenance acquisition, Pyramid Chief Commercial Officer Brian Berry said the goal was to bring together the best of each company while maintaining what makes their centers of excellence special.

“We want to make sure that what is special and what is unique about how we operate those hotels doesn't get lost,” he said.

The timing of the Pyramid, Benchmark and Provenance deals couldn’t have been better, Berry said. The hotel industry was recovering from the pandemic and in a growth cycle thanks to the early tailwinds created by leisure demand. That accelerated the company toward its goals following each deal.

No integration is perfect, and the company has stubbed its toe here and there, Berry said. Pyramid’s leaders spent a lot of time thinking about how best to leverage the company’s scale and practices across the entire organization.

“The last thing we want to do is to homogenize our entire organization because if we lose the spark, we have failed,” he said.

What was generalized across the entire company was how to develop and grow talent and invest in things such as analytics and technology, he said. Those are universally applicable.

Communicating with guests, programming hotel experiences and marketing to guests all are unique aspects, he said, and the company has been deliberate in siloing some of those efforts, he said.

In the roughly year and a half since the merger, Benchmark Global Hospitality’s portfolio has grown by 65 properties, Berry said. That includes the hotels added through its acquisition of Provenance Hotels. There are more in the pipeline.

Most recently, the company announced in early June six hotels joining its management portfolio. The Flamingo Resort & Spa and The Sandman Hotel in Santa Rosa, California; the Wayfinder Newport Hotel in Newport, Rhode Island; the Hotel Paradox, Autograph Collection in Santa Cruz, California; and the Preserve Sporting Club & Residences in Richmond, Rhode Island, are joining the Benchmark Pyramid Luxury & Lifestyle division. The Westin Tampa Bay will join Pyramid Global's branded division.

“As we have repeatedly said, we’re not focused on growth for growth’s sake. That is not our objective,” Berry said. “It’s a little bit of a flywheel effect, where as we build those partnerships, these deals come. That’s kind of part and parcel to how we’re organized as a company.”

While the pace of hotel transactions has slowed, opportunities to pick up new management contracts have not, Berry said. Some of the portfolio growth has come from existing owners who trust the company to take over operations of their properties.

“Whether it comes from growth and just having a bigger footprint and more awareness and more capabilities, I don't know, but probably half the deals that we've done this year are with new partners, and that's pretty unusual in this kind of environment,” he said.

Becoming an employer of choice means building a company that people want to join, Berry said. Potential employees need to see a path for growth and advancement. They need to see a company with a culture that aligns with their values. Putting people first is another must, he said.

“We want employees to choose to join us because they see something in our company that is appealing, whether it's growth, whether it's culture, whether it's the opportunities for success, and there's some very specific tools we use,” he said.

Pyramid’s employee assessment program brought in an outside firm to provide unbiased views and profiling for job candidates to help the company attract employees from non-traditional sources, he said.

“Part of it is just casting a wider net that helps you to see more people and to potentially attract from very non-traditional sources, and that is certainly a competitive advantage,” he said.

To differentiate its services and operations from competitors, Pyramid has been using analytics to drive its decision-making, Berry said. That appeals to owners because it boosts their hotels’ performance and efficiency. That also helps attract talent, because potential hires see Pyramid as a forward-thinking company.

All these factors combine to give people an incentive to stay, grow and develop, Berry said, citing Pyramid CEO Warren Field’s strategy that a company’s growth comes through creating opportunities for existing associates.

“You can’t grow your career in a stagnant environment,” he said. “In order to have those opportunities, you have to grow as a company.”

The most encouraging demand trend in the industry, and for Pyramid specifically, is the strong pace of group business recovery, Berry said. It has been accelerating despite economic concerns, with Pyramid’s hotels seeing a 30% year-over-year increase along with higher average daily rates in the segment.

The interesting part of this recovery is that much of the volume is coming from smaller groups than have historically made up the guest mix, he said. The number of large groups is growing, and the size of the groups is growing as well. That trend is expected to continue through this year into next.

“Group is going to be the headline for the next year and a half for us as a company,” he said.

Another promising development is the amount of spending groups do on property, Berry said. While negotiated rates are lower compared to leisure rates, the groups on property often make last-minute decisions to upgrade different parts of their stays, particularly for events and food and beverage.

Much of group travel comes from companies, and they use these events as employee retention tools, he said.

“They want to make those experiences when they are bringing together those associates,” he said. “They want to make sure those experiences are rewarding and as productive as possible.”

Berry said Benchmark Global Hospitality is not overly concerned a slowdown in the economy in the second half of 2023 could derail the recovery of group business.

Business travel, however, has a much tougher road to recovery, he said. It will be choppier and take longer, and it’s much more sensitive to economic conditions given the short lead time.

“Given how discretionary a lot of that travel is, if we do see an economic slowdown toward the back half of the year, that’s an area companies are very likely to pull back spending,” he said.

The stronger start to 2023 is itself a risk as companies may decide they spent too much of their travel budgets early on and are forced to make cuts, he said. With all of that in mind, Pyramid’s prepared for the segment to continue to underperform compared to group and leisure.

Leisure travel demand, meanwhile, is normalizing after unprecedented price growth, he said. While not reaching its pandemic highs, leisure is still a segment that Pyramid is optimistic about given all the economic drivers pointing to its continued strength.

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