WASHINGTON, D.C.—Within every great hotel brand, each property has a common thread.
When Potomac Hospitality Services decided to launch the Modus Hotels brand, Senior VP of revenue Jerry Early was tasked with finding Modus’ thread.
Early was part of the executive team that set out to create Modus with the goal of helping owners take advantage of a brand’s economies of scale without brand fees or product improvement plans.
“When I joined the company, my first thought was, ‘Gosh, what a great collection of hotels. But what do we really have here? What is it? What’s that thread that runs through the hotels?’” he said.
In forming the Modus collection, Early and the Potomac team took a long, hard look at each property. They interviewed associates, talked to customers and reviewed competitive sets. The story of the brand told itself, Early said.
“These are just great properties, really neighborhood centric,” he said. “The hotels weren’t trying to create any special vibe; they just fit the customers’ needs. The staffs were super engaged.”
Early said Potomac’s executives studied Kimpton Hotel & Restaurant Group and Morgans Hotel Group Company hotels, but decided they didn’t fit in either. Instead, they decided to create their own brand and try to define what Modus meant to the customers so they know what they are getting.
“So we went through that whole process and that was what shaped the umbrella of Modus Hotels,” Early said. “It’s just your modus operandi–the way we do business. The way we do things.”
Potomac owns and manages independent hotels in three major gateway cities: Washington, D.C., Philadelphia and Chicago. Most of the portfolio is considered part of the Modus Hotels brand, although Early said the company will continue to seek management opportunities outside of the brand. The assets compete in gateway cities at a price point similar to Courtyard by Marriott or Hilton Garden Inn, he said.
Like other independent collections, Modus will focus on the hotels’ unique characteristics so they stand out as “an individual, memorable experience,” Early said. And joining the brand will offer owners flexibility as they can choose to enter into a full third-party management agreement or select from a full complement of support services on an a la carte basis.
In addition, Potomac is pursuing expansion via acquisitions or joint ventures.
“We’re not trying to seek out franchise sales,” Early said. “We’re trying to establish our brand. We think we have a good recipe and have developed a scalable platform. We can now go out and grow a third-party management company.”
Hotel personalities
The brand presence throughout Modus will be subtle. Hotels will feature some in-room collateral that explains what Modus means along with window clings, but their names won’t change.
“We want to make sure the hotels’ individual personalities shine through as the primary identifier,” Early said. “We just want the customer to know we have other hotels that we manage. That we have the staff and the infrastructure that’s going to deliver the same experience in D.C. as the ones in Chicago and Philadelphia.”
Early said owner reaction to the Modus brand has been positive. Owners see it as an additional opportunity to gain exposure.
“We’re going to be marketing the portfolio in more places than their hotels were marketed individually,” he said. “Instead of having one sales team, each individual sales team will be cross-selling. We will be optimizing a new website that will get more distribution.”
Moving forward, Potomac would like the Modus brand to grow into other gateway cities as to complement the current urban portfolio.
“We’re not going to be that demanding of an owner,” Early said. “We have a great management organization that comes in, but we’re not going to ask for a (property improvement plan) or say you have to convert anything. That’s the beauty of the flexibility we offer.”
Forming Modus
Early has since helped Potomac add two properties to its portfolio and helped launch and shape a collection of independent hotels called Modus Hotels. The thing that sets Modus apart, Early said, is that all of the hotels are converted apartment buildings. The design elements are “comfortable,” he said.
“Modus is all independent, all unique, they’re just great little hotels,” he said. “We’re not trying to be something prescribed.”