It's been nearly two years since Hilton acquired Graduate Hotels, the brand with bespoke university-themed properties near college campuses. In the coming years, its portfolio is primed to more than double in size.
Graduate by Hilton has 35 hotels, 33 in U.S. college towns such as Columbus, Ohio, home of the Ohio State University, and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the University of Tennessee is located. The other two hotels in its portfolio are in the U.K. in Cambridge and Oxford.
Since the acquisition, Graduate has opened only one property, the Graduate by Hilton Dallas located across the street from Southern Methodist University. But the pace of Graduate hotel openings is set to change drastically in the near future.
Parker Henderson, brand leader of Graduate by Hilton, said that it has "several [hotels] in the pipeline" and about 60 deals in some state of negotiation or development.
Most of Graduate's footprint is located in markets with universities that are in one of the Power Four sports conferences — Big Ten, SEC, ACC and Big 12. Henderson said Graduate would like to continue expanding its reach in those types of markets.
"That's where we belong," he said. "When we're located in those markets, we're at the corner of Main and Main. We are so close to the action, we're right down the street from the university, sometimes on the campus, but we're next door."
Graduate's current hotel portfolio is mostly comprised of conversion hotels — 27 out of 35, Henderson said. The division between conversions and new builds is likely to continue as Graduate grows its portfolio.
Graduate does "conversions from a lot of different things. Other branded hotels, [a] senior living facility like we have in Columbus, little bit of everything that we can bring in together," he said. "Most important thing for us is that location."
For more from Graduate by Hilton's Parker Henderson, watch the video or listen to the podcast embedded above.