May 2018 Digital Issue

WORKING FOR
YOUR BEST
INTEREST
Arranged Financing for the Construction and Take-Out
We are a niche brokerage that
secures financing exclusively
for the hotel industry.
Several options available for construction
and acquisition financing (up to 75%).
We can arrange bridge, secondary and
mezzanine across Canada.
Expertise in assisting with management,
franchise, and construction contracts.
Personalized financing plans and all deals
kept confidential.
Connect With Us
Steve Hedington
905.447.7959
steve@cliftonblake.com
Salim Gulamani
647.523.4949
salim@cliftonblake.com
cliftonblake.com/hotels
Clifton Blake Capital Corp. FSCO M15001928 M15000149 | BROKERAGE 12649
broadly across the portfolio. One
of my favourite lines from our CEO
Arne Sorenson, is ‘just fail fast. Just
do it and if it’s not going to work,
get onto the next one.’ We have a
distinct innovation group at Marriott
constantly on the prowl for new
ideas — testing and vetting them,
getting them worked out in the
market and then rolled out.
RW: We’re focused on innovating
the business. Technology-based
innovation is going to be key to
what we, and many other businesses,
are doing. This is the era of big
data, so how can we use that data,
and the data that we own from
our guest stays, to create experiences
personalized to that particular
customer? In order to do that,
you have to have good technology
systems in place, which we are in
process of doing. For example, in
the coming year, people will be
able to choose rooms like you do
on airlines. That’s helping people
to personalize their stay, but that’s
only the really easy front running.
With Alexa and all these different
technologies in your home, people
are going to want these to be located
in the hotel. It becomes table
stakes, so in certain things, we have
to be ahead of the curve to create
these residential experiences — to
create distribution in a commercial
way that makes sense.
KG: [Our] brands are introducing
new technology standards on a
renovation-by-renovation basis —
the technology part is really hard
to keep up with, particularly in a
smaller company. On the design
front, we’re seeing more people not
necessarily wanting to have material
things, [but rather] they want to
have experiences. So, the design
we’re seeing now, across the board
— both architecture and interior
design — is more around creating
an experience for the guest. For
example, slimmed-down case pieces
and more efficient use of space.
Big, bulky desks [are being replaced
with] slim, for lack of a better term
— more modern furniture.
RC: Lobbies have become increasingly
important. Do you see that
trend continuing?
RM: I see it continuing and it’s a
return to the roots of the hotels as
the living room of the city. Across
the board with our brands —
whether it’s luxury, full-service or
select-service — a huge focus is put
on that public space; making sure
it’s not a breakfast room over in the
corner that’s curtained off at the
end of the breakfast service. How
do you pull that forward, make it
multi-functional space, so as soon as
that breakfast service is over, it still
is a very activated space with hightop
tables where groups are working
together — a place where people
actually want to be? As hoteliers,
we’re guilty, historically, of creating
spaces that people did not want to
be in, or they became irrelevant and
dated to what a guest’s expectations
were.
RC: How is the boutique segment
performing these days?
RM: That it is a space [where] we’ll
see quite a lot of growth in Canada
in the next 10 years. The first wave
will be in the major metro markets,
but now that we have lifestyle
boutique brands that are more
cost effective to develop and
operate, we’ll still see them in
secondary markets.
BF: Boutique hotels are a niche play
and very location-specific. A lot of
the ones we’ve seen that are successful
relate well to the neighbourhoods
where they’re located. We’ve
seen a number of these developed,
particularly in Toronto. Montreal
had a long history of very successful
boutique hotels — a lot of them in
and around Old Montreal — but in
some of the areas around Toronto,
for example Queen E., Queen W.,
we’re also seeing successful operations.
A lot of the time, they’ll be
combined with a very strong F&B
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