With four mergers in the previous five years behind it, Two
Roads Hospitality used its newfound stability to focus on broadening its
higher-end hotel pipeline and rejigger its marketing and sales efforts, while
opening a handful of high-profile properties.
Two Roads' brands are Destination Hotels, Joie de Vivre,
Thompson and Alila.
Two Roads Hospitality CEO Jamie Sabatier, who will be
speaking on a lifestyle hotels panel at this week's Americas Lodging Investment
Summit in Los Angeles, said Two Roads, which operates about 90 hotels, signed
15 agreements for hotels in North America and another 12 in Asia last year.
It opened Hotel 50 Bowery, New York's first hotel in the Joie de
Vivre portfolio, in 2017. Additionally, it brought its Asia-based Alila
division to North America last fall when it took over the Ventana Big Sur
resort on the Central California coast.
Sabatier said the company took about four percentage points
of market share from its competitors last year.
"It was a great year in terms of becoming one as a
company," said Sabatier. "By having both urban and resort properties,
we've been able to leverage the competitive advantage of each brand."
The company could afford to focus on operations in 2017
after years of mergers. Joie de Vivre Hotels merged with Thompson Hotels in
2011 to form what would become Commune Hotels & Resorts. Joie de Vivre
principal and Hyatt scion John Pritzker then bought out the 50% share of
Commune owned by Thompson Hotels' founding Pomeranc family and co-founder
Stephen Brandman. Commune Hotels acquired Alila Hotels in 2015. Finally,
Destination Hotels and Commune Hotels announced their merger in 2016 and named
the parent company Two Roads Hospitality.
Still, 2017 wasn't without its hiccups. Niki Leondakis, the
former Commune Hotels CEO who became head of Two Roads' hotels and resorts
division after the merger, left the company last March to become CEO of fitness
club operator Equinox. Plans for the company's first hotel under the Tommie
micro-room brand, which fell through in New York in 2016, continued to be
delayed, though Sabatier said the brand will debut with a hotel in Hollywood
next year. Finally, the Ventana Big Sur reopening was plagued by restricted
road access after last year's storms forced road closures in the area.
That said, such challenges didn't stop Two Roads from
doubling down in its efforts to court travel agents and keep them abreast of
the company's newfound breadth of properties, according to Larkspur,
Calif.-based Jeffery DalPoggetto, luxury travel adviser with Andavo Travel.
"They've made sure we're aware of what's going on,"
he said. "Before Ventana opened, they had several key advisers up here in
Marin for lunch to show us what it looked like, which was great."
Going forward, Two Roads faces the challenges of both
potentially integrating its loyalty programs -- it has almost 2 million people
in Destination Hotels' Destination Privileges recognition program as well as
about 250,000 members in Joie de Vivre's Joy of Life group -- as well as
contending with larger hotel companies.
Additionally, the company faces the prospect of more
competition as more hotel companies debut brands within the lifestyle sector
long occupied by Thompson and in the soft-branded area, where Destination and
Joie de Vivre compete.
Still Sabatier remains confident.
"We view it as a validation of our strategy," he
said. "And, frankly, I think there's enough [business] to go around."
And the pipeline is growing. The company on Jan. 18
announced its first project to include hotels from two divisions. A 160-room
Joie de Vivre property and a 226-room Destination Hotels resort will break
ground this year on a beachfront site about 40 miles north of San Diego.