Advisory Services
The breadth and depth of hospitality industry knowledge and experience that resides within the hotel professionals at Charlestowne Hotels serves hotel owners who need expert advice when making critical decisions about hotel assets and hotel investments.
Among their prior hotel consulting engagements, Charlestowne Hotels Advisory Services include hotel consulting projects focused upon the turn-around of distressed or underperforming assets, branding and positioning of both new and existing hotels, new hotel feasibility studies, lender presentations, analysis and benchmarking of financial operating results, hotel transaction support, customer opinion measurement and analysis, and business strategy.
When asset value, market share, and future cash flow from operations are at stake, hotel developers, hotel owners, hotel investors, and hotel lenders alike all turn to Charlestowne Hotels Advisory Services for the data collection, analyses, and expertise required to proffer good advice, make well informed decisions, and implement effective plans of action.
Case Studies:
Refinancing a Georgian Country Inn
An owner of a luxury inn who developed and opened his property in 2008 just prior to the Great Recession, needed to refinance and was being rejected by lenders who were unable to understand how the property’s performance would be any different in the future than it had been in the two years since opening.
Charlestowne Hotels Advisory Services prepared a “white paper” for the owner to present to the lenders that succinctly and effectively presented the best available analysts’ thinking and projections for the future and aligned them with macroeconomic trends and forecasts. A judicious selection of sources and information combined with the Advisory Services team’s own insights and opinions convinced the lenders to move forward with the financing, and the owner succeeded in closing the deal.
Developing a new Boutique Hotel in Suburban Atlanta
In the midst of a difficult lending and development environment, Charlestowne Hotels Advisory Services found a unique point-of-view for developers who needed market discovery and strategic analysis to support their “gut instinct” with sound research to guide hotel product development, financial pro forma, and lender presentations.
The hotel consultant from Charlestowne Hotels Advisory Services conducted research leading to a novel approach to the existing inventory in the subject market. Although an abundance of vacant hotel rooms was present, the market was not so much over-built as it was under-demolished. The available lodging choices in the market were low quality and generally perceived as undesirable by upper-scale travelers. Yet, the local demand drivers and traveler demographics revealed that there were a large number of more upper-scale guests whose demand for better accommodations was being unmet by existing products.
Creating a Rental Marketing Program for the Time Share Industry
When one of the world’s largest timeshare management companies needed to create additional revenues for the Timeshare Owners Associations they serve, they turned to Charlestowne Hotels’ to create and implement a robust vacation rental program that would outpace competitors through deployment of current best practices in e-commerce, merchandising, and revenue management.
Going beyond mere consulting by implementing the technology, systems, and processes required for shared ownership resorts to compete with traditional, single ownership resorts in their markets, the client’s properties under management enjoyed a 40% year-over-year increase in rental revenues enabling the resorts’ owners to hold down maintenance fee increases arising from spiraling default rates among timeshare owners.
A Manhattan Hotel Asset Liquidation
A nationally respected real estate investment firm seeking to liquidate its hotel asset in New York City engaged a Charlestowne Hotels Advisory Services team member to improve the hotel’s reputation in online rankings, improve revenue performance, find operational efficiencies to improve flow-through to the bottom line, create and implement a product improvement plan to show the asset in its best light, and calm unrest among some of the union labor at the hotel who had engaged in obstructionist behavior.
Morale improvement programs were developed and implemented and succeeded in improving the labor climate, a guest perception management program was implemented improving satisfaction ratings by former guests, the property moved from number four to number one in RevPAR within its STR competitive set, revenue retention improved increasing the net income 15%, and the hotel’s aesthetics were improved at minimal investment. These successful endeavors combined to enable the hotel to sell at the owner’s desired price in a down market.
Conversion of a Failed Condominium Development to a Four-Diamond Boutique Hotel
A group of developers rehabilitated several historic structures into premium, luxury residences but found themselves victims of bad timing. The developers were unable to sell the units at anywhere near their investment value. With lenders pressuring, the investors turned to Charlestowne Hotels whose Advisory Services team performed a feasibility study and determined that there was demand in that lodging market for luxury suites and extended stay that fitted well within the condominium development.
After assisting the developers and investors with gaining the lenders’ cooperation, Charlestowne Hotels proceeded to develop FF&E and OS&E budgets and specifications, develop the branding and marketing, and support fulfillment of the permitting and licensing requirements required to convert the development into a luxury boutique hotel.
