Valencia Hotel Collection is reaching milestones. This year it's celebrating 20 years in business, but now with a new identity.

The Houston-based hospitality company, which provides management, development, branding and repositioning services for independent and full-service hotels, was formerly Valencia Hotel Group.

Valencia Hotel Collection Chief Operating Officer Roy Kretschmer said in an interview with Hotel News Now that as the company addresses new markets and opportunities for growth, the name better reflects the current portfolio and what's to come.

"We're about to embark on a growth spurt here, so we're trying to retool," he said.

Valencia Hotel Collection's overarching goal, however, is to remain differentiated among the sea of hotel brands.

"Twenty years ago, boutiques and luxury independent hotels didn't have a lot of competition. Now ... you've got all these big brands that are rolling out several lifestyle brands and soft [brands] that are absorbing a lot of these grande dame independent hotels," he said. "What's left now for us is that true independent, boutique luxury experience where that discerning traveler doesn't want to be part of that commoditized experience."

Today, the company operates a collection of seven independent hotels: Hotel Valencia Riverwalk in San Antonio, Texas; Hotel Valencia Santana Row in San Jose, California; Lone Star Court in Austin, Texas; Calvary Court and The George in College Station, Texas; Texican Court in Irving, Texas; and Cotton Court in Lubbock, Texas.

The approach for expansion will mostly be ground-up development in leisure destinations.

The market will determine the concept that Valencia Hotel Collection decides to develop, Kretschmer said. His team is not looking to jump into commoditized markets but rather secondary markets with stable demand generators and little to no additional independent hotel supply.

"There's no one formula that we're going to try to apply. What we would do in one market may be completely different than what we do somewhere else," he added.

Development has become trickier as costs rise, but Kretschmer said this is the new normal and is forcing his team to recalibrate to make deals happen.

"We've got to be a little bit more creative in the development process. Maybe the financing vehicles are a little more creative; there might be more equity, and that in itself puts more pressure on returns," he said. "But that might be our new norm, and those realities of those interest rates are probably not likely to change much. We've got to be able to adapt to that."

Having a track record in the sector is helping gain leverage in conversations with lenders, he added.

Kretschmer said there's also third-party management contract opportunities that Valencia Hotel Collection could pursue.

Kretschmer said smaller and regional groups are returning to his properties for group events, including corporate retreats and training.

"We're kind of getting back to that initial benchmark of 2019 from a group contribution standpoint, and hopeful for [individual] business travel; that's the last segment that we're still waiting on," he said.

More citywide events are returning as well, which could increase group sizes.

"They're not back to the same levels that they were, but at least citywides are starting to take place," he added.

In years past, many hoteliers were of the mindset to take any and all group demand they could get. They weren't as worried about displacing business travelers since that segment has been slower to recover.

That's shifting some heading into 2024.

"As we get into 2024 and we're starting to see a lot more of negotiated rates and corporate accounts kick back in, we want to make sure we make some room for them. We're being a lot more strategic about how we're layering in group business so we don't displace that return of business travel," he said.

Kretschmer's team is now relying more on traditional year-over-year comparisons rather than benchmarking to 2019.

"As we're going into the future and all subsequent years, the buzz terms of 'COVID' and 'pre-COVID' are going to go away. Let's focus on what we've done recently and what we can build on from there," he said.

Not only has Valencia Hotel Collection restructured its branding and team, it also is ensuring employee benefit packages and recruiting/development tactics are competitive.

As of today, each property within the company's portfolio is back to normal staffing levels.

"Refocusing on reinvesting into that human resource process, readapting to what this next generation of associate is looking for and changing the benefit structure to address that has made a big difference in retention," Kretschmer said.

Valencia Hotel Collection also has rolled out a program called "Philanthropic Days Off."

"We will pay upwards of 40 hours a year — a full [work] week — for each and every employee to participate in a charity or event that's important to them or to an organization that personally touches their lives," he said. "In the past, we've always embraced one charity ... now we can tell all associates on the team to do whatever is important to [them]."

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