ATLANTA — At a time when the hotel industry is facing challenges with development, My Place Hotels President Ryan Rivett said his upper midscale extended-stay brand is actually seeing some growth in that area.
“You know, 2022 was a great year because we saw a real surge in growth and development where everybody was looking at 2020 and 2021, trying to regroup and figure out what to do,” he said during an interview with Hotel News Now at the 2023 Hunter Hotel Investment Conference. There's been “stabilization in the labor force and a lot of good opportunities in operations, but development has really been the high point.”
Rivett said company executives will continue to monitor the potential banking crisis, but the difficulties in development remain the same.
“The typical challenges of lending and developing have been finding the right lender for the right property. There’s so much going on in the industry that it really comes down to finding the right fit,” he said. “Things are costing more at the moment. The guys that are most successful are just really putting their head down and maintaining the relationships with lenders that they have, and it’s working well for them.”
Two high points of My Place Hotels’ past year were reaching its 100th franchise milestone in September 2022 and a multiple-development agreement with TGC Group, a Wichita, Kansas-based hospitality firm, for nine newly developed hotels by 2027.
Turning his focus to 2023, Rivett said My Place Hotels is focused on continuing to improve its leadership development platforms.
“We’re going to see that and we’re going to see continued engagement with larger portfolio investors that are developing along inside of our chain and the complexities that come along with them doing six, seven, eight properties at a time,” he said. “We’re going to see a lot of properties open this year and our support systems grow really, really well.”