Tom Santora joined Omni Hotels & Resorts as its chief marketing officer in 2008, just as the economic downturn was sinking its teeth into the hotel industry, but Santora says the hotelier maintained its high service standards enough to keep it poised for expansion once economic conditions improved. Now he's preparing to broaden the brand's presence amid its recent acquisition of five U.S. resorts and the upcoming rebranding of Toronto's century-old King Edward Hotel. He recently spoke with hotels editor Danny King.
Q: What drew Omni to the King Edward?
A: The King Edward fell right into our wheelhouse. It's a beautiful, historic hotel, and when you talk about it with locals, it's almost like a magical place. The rooms need to be renovated, but our [ownership] partners have already kicked that off, and we're going to continue that process from a guest-room perspective. There's a ballroom on the roof that's been shuttered for 30 years; it's in really bad shape. By bringing that back, it's almost like giving it back to the city. So I would say by the first quarter, pretty much everything will be done.
Q: With the acquisitions from KSL Capital Partners, you've acquired iconic properties such as California's La Costa and Virginia's Homestead. How do you balance keeping these properties individual and bringing them into the Omni fold?
A: I'd call it soft-branding. We'll answer the phone "Omni Homestead, how do I direct your call?" but that may be the only time you hear the word "Omni" during your stay. Part of our logo is a hibiscus, but you're not going to see a lot of hibiscuses at the Homestead. These are great individual hotels that were successful, but we can make them more successful by tapping into our distribution system.
Q: You joined Omni at a challenging time for the hotel industry. How has that affected how the company runs its hotels?
A: Even in 2008 and 2009 when things were horrible and rates were plummeting, Mr. Rowling [Robert Rowling, principal of Omni parent TRT Holdings] said that whatever we do, we want to make sure we don't damage the brand. For instance, every Omni has beautiful apples at the front desk. We spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on them, but we'd never get rid of them. Every Omni has doormen. He said that we we're never going to let a guest open the door at an Omni. Then we decided to renovate [New York's] Omni Berkshire Place. So it's a very different mentality, and it's very inspiring.
Q: Where's Omni looking to expand?
A: North America's going to be where we really focus. We're 42.5% owners of Global Hotel Alliance, so there's a chance to get a global footprint when it comes to marketing opportunities and loyalty programs. But from a development footprint, it's just going to be North America. There are definitely cities we want to be in, like Miami, Seattle and Portland (Ore.). But what's pretty cool from a development perspective is that we have the ability to say no. We say no more often than we say yes.
Q: You worked for Marriott and Viceroy before joining Omni. How did those experiences inform you?
A: Marriott's an amazing company. It's a machine, and I learned a lot because I did a lot of jobs with them. When I joined Viceroy, they only had three hotels, and I didn't even know how to spell "GDS" because Marriott took care of all of that. So I had a chance to build a sales and marketing team from scratch. You take those two things and mix them together, and that's Omni. We have the infrastructure of a Marriott, Starwood or Hilton, but we have the spirit of a Viceroy, where it's very entrepreneurial.
Follow Danny King on Twitter @dktravelweekly.