Michael Roberts often refers to himself as
a new entrant in the hotel industry.
It is surprising to
hear him say that, considering one of his companies, Roberts Hotels
Group, owns four hotels and will open its fifth property, the
Crowne Plaza Atlanta/Marietta, in August.
Roberts and his
brother and business partner, Steven, specialize in commercial real
estate. They have developed everything from shopping centers to
condominiums and are building 52 condo apartments in Nassau, the
Bahamas.
His $650 million
company also built a 47-unit condominium in St. Louis, where the
company is based, and have diverse holdings in broadcasting and
telecommunications, plus a charter airline enterprise, Roberts
Aviation.
Five years ago, the
Roberts brothers decided to invest in hotels, just as the larger
chains began stepping up efforts to recruit African-American
investors like him, Roberts said.
Until that time,
such chains as Choice, Starwood, Hilton and InterContinental Hotels
Group were not on the radar for minority investors, Roberts said.
He bought his first hotel, the historic Mayfair Hotel in St. Louis,
about five years ago.
There are lots of
reasons from a diversity standpoint for us to think about growing
our business, said Roslyn Dickerson, senior vice president of
diversity for InterContinental Hotels Group. There is a huge
[untapped] market out there that we are not as connected to as we
would like be.
Dickerson adds
women business owners to the list of well- capitalized
entrepreneurs that her chain is pursuing.
For a company like
InterContinental, which has global growth aspirations, you have to
demonstrate your ability to really grow in any market, Dickerson
said.
The way that you do
that is you start to build relationships across those markets. The
minority market in the U.S. represents that to us, much like if we
were to grow in China or India or other parts of the world. They
are unique kinds of marketplaces that we need to get our hands
around.
Roberts said it was
an ability to work closely with InterContinental that spurred the
development of the Crowne Plaza in Atlanta. His company also owns
an InterContinental in Houston and two Holiday Inns, one in Tampa
and the other in Houston near the Johnson Space Center.
Roberts, who is
chairman of the National Association of Black Hotel Owners,
Operators and Developers (Nabhood), a prominent trade group for
African-American hotel owners, spends much of his time urging other
African-American businesses to consider hotels as an
investment.
In developing the
Crowne Plaza, Roberts said, It was a little striking because
Atlanta has the wealthiest African-Americans in the country, with
the exception of Prince Georges County [in Maryland]. Yet [an
African-American-owned] full-service hotel didnt exist
there.
There are about
five major African-American-owned commercial real estate companies
developing hotels.
The largest is
Bethesda, Md.-based RLJ Development, which is owned by Robert
Johnson, founder of the BET cable television network.
Earlier this year,
RLJ signed a $1 billion deal to acquire 100 hotels from White
Lodging Services Corp.
Because 90 of the
hotels are Marriott-branded properties, the acquisition made RLJ
Development one of Marriotts largest hotel owners.
In the area of
hotel ownership, African-Americans and other minorities lag
significantly behind Asian-Americans, particularly
Indians.
The 8,300 members
of the Asian-American Hotel Owners Association own more than 20,000
hotels, which translates to more than 1 million rooms, or 37% of
all the hotels in the U.S.
(M.P. Rama, the
AAHOAs chairman, is one of the speakers at Nabhoods annual
convention in Atlanta, July 19 to 22.)
Why is it that out
of the almost 48,000 to 50,000 hotels, there are less than [150]
African-American-owned hotels? That is a question that probably
deserves a great deal of attention, Roberts said.
Big deals such as
the RLJs acquisition of 90 Marriott-branded hotels go a long way
toward raising awareness among entrepreneurs of hotels as
investments, InterContinentals Dickerson said, while inspiring
others to follow.
Dickerson said she
has several other deals in the pipeline.
Meanwhile, with
hotels in Atlanta, Houston, Tampa and St. Louis, Roberts -- who has
written a book, Action Has No Season: Secrets and Strategies of
Gaining Wealth and Authority -- is looking to expand.
I like the
Southeast and the Midwest, Roberts said. What Im finding is baby
boomers are heading south [to retire]. So as retirees travel, we
want to develop enough hotels so that they can stay in one of our
hotels from Houston to Tampa to Atlanta to St. Louis.
In the process, he
intends to develop Roberts as a brand name.
After all, Mr.
Hilton and Mr. Marriott did it, Roberts said.
To
contact reporter Michael Milligan, send e-mail to [email protected].