Hospitality America

Continued collaboration and trust with its hotel owners over more than two decades garners new opportunities for Hospitality America each year. Cargen believes that his firm’s level of involvement in the hotels it manages separates it from the pack. “Typically, a third-party management company won’t come online until a TCO (temporary certificate of occupancy) is obtained on the building and a general manager is hired, which is typically four months out from opening,” he notes. “We’re working on pre-development projects that have not even been approved yet and funded by the development company. We’re involved in those decisions, providing analysis and strategy, flag, site selection, market selection, etc. Most management companies aren’t expected to be involved in the pre-development process, but we’ve been doing all those things for over 25 years for the ownership group to make sure the projects will be successful.” Hospitality America grew without any true advertising strategy. Rather, it was the strong internal credibility and overall relationship with Marriott and Hilton and the way projects were executed that proved to be the company’s advertising arm. “We only take on those projects where we can deliver what we promise,” says Berger, “and if we feel there’s a flaw to a project, we’ll share it with a client early and often on the front end; whereas, with many management companies, it’s not in their best interest to provide negativity that could potentially derail a project. That’s why our portfolio has performed as well as it has.” As a group, occupancy is just slightly under 80 percent, and as a portfolio, Hospitality America properties consistently run significant premiums over the system-wide average for those brands. Berger admits, “We may say it’s not in our best interest as a management company to encourage ownership to divest an asset, but if we see a market that is becoming overbuilt, or the fundamentals of that market are changing, we may come to the owner and say, ‘We think