Mark Halloron, Director
GRS | Corteq
(732) 450-8960
[email protected]
A new hotel chain being proposed by President Trump’s real estate company made several headlines at the beginning of the year.
Nine months later, we are getting some more interesting announcements.
Like Trump’s American IDEA concept, which targets midscale consumers, giant InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) is launching Avid Hotels, which aims to target guests in a similar economic demographic. IHG, who already owns nameplates from the boutique Kimpton chain to Holiday Inn Express, says that Avid’s room rates will be $10 to $15 less per night, making it on the lower end of midscale. Its planned amenities, though, such as modern design, communal open spaces, as well as free Wifi and breakfast, make it sound relatively upscale for those traveling on a budget.
The first Avid hotels are planned for construction earlier this year, and the first is expected to roll out in 2019. IHG reports that about 150 potential owners have already expressed interest. Individual assets are planned to have between 95 and 100 keys on 1.5 acres.
On a more unexpected note, luxury hotel mogul Ian Schrager, known for several of the country’s leading hospitality venues, is going significantly more bare bones with a new concept.
This summer his company opened Public in Manhattan’s Lower East side. Rooms reportedly start at $150 in an area of town that can command much higher room rates. Though the hotel is a full-service luxury, Public is also reportedly cutting costs for consumers by eliminating bellhops and front-desk workers with tech innovations as a replacement. Another way it’s offsetting the low-room prices is by having five bars, a coffee shop and market, which will all certainly be used by non-guests.
Similar to Avid, Public is in expansion mode, with more hotels in the works in New York City, as well as Las Vegas, Miami, and Europe. In all of these locales, it is more than likely that there will be a high concentration of restaurants and bars to bring in the neighborhood population, in addition to those staying in the facility’s rooms.
Though the IHG and Schrager concepts couldn’t theoretically be more different when experiencing their atmospheres, their economic demographic is basically the same. The “typical” hotel is not going to be enough, even for consumers that don’t have several hundred dollars a night to spend on a room, or just don’t see the point. These innovations and their accompanying expansions show that there is more competition in hospitality real estate, making it an exciting sector of the industry.