HOUSTON—Benchmark Hospitality International added the management contracts of five luxury properties to its portfolio Wednesday with the acquisition of Seattle-based MTM Luxury Lodging while simultaneously launching a new collection of hotels called the Personal Luxury Collection.
Benchmark will add management of Hotel 1000 and the Sorrento Hotel, both in Seattle; Willows Lodge in Woodinville, Washington; and Bardessono in Napa Valley, California; as well as the Bellevue Park Hotel, currently under construction and expected to open in 2013. Grouped with eight independent upper-upscale and luxury properties managed by Benchmark, the hotels will make up the new Personal Luxury Collection, a collection of independent upper-upscale and luxury hotels.
“We started talking about our two companies and how similar they are,” Jim Treadway, chairman of MTM and GM of the Bardessono, told HotelNewsNow.com. “We really have a very strong niche in full-service luxury. Benchmark has several hotels that are of the same quality. The notion was to put our two companies together, for Benchmark to acquire us and launch a brand at the top of the market.”
The Personal Luxury Collection will offer owners of independent hotels the ability to keep their unique characteristics but add a management team with experience in running independent upscale hotels.
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Cabañas, Alex |
“At the end of the day we aren’t positioning it as a chain,” said Alex Cabañas, chief development and strategy officer for Benchmark. “We’re not talking about loyalty programs or things of that nature. We want to continue to maintain the personalized experiences at the hotels and offer the ability to join a company that is very focused on the owner.
“At some point we’d like to be the dominant luxury brand for independent hotels,” added Treadway, who will stay on with other executives from MTM and help lead the Personal Luxury Collection.
Treadway said the MTM team recently came to the realization that growing organically wasn’t a viable business model, and they wanted to align themselves with a larger entity with more access to capital partners.
The hotel owners each had to be consulted, and “they all signed up enthusiastically,” he said. Each owner signed a five-year contract with Benchmark.
He said owners who join the collection moving forward will get “superb management” first and foremost.
“Between the two companies, we have solidified operation systems and platforms,” Treadway said. “Owners will get very personalized attention and a lot of owner involvement. We not only allow our owners to get involved if they choose, but we encourage them to.”
A shared philosophy
Cabañas said the deal to acquire MTM has been in the works for nine months. Most of that time has been spent discussing a shared philosophy of service culture, he said.
“Although there is a tremendous amount of talk about the idea of luxury as we emerge from the recession, we’ve been talking about personalized experience, and not of silver and gold, for 10 years,” Cabañas said.
MTM emerged as the best fit as Benchmark discussed the opportunity to add smaller, more intimate luxury properties to its management collection while at the same time growing its West Coast presence, he said.
“We’re almost to the point where it’s easier to acquire a company and take on a number of projects at the same time than do it one-by-one,” Cabañas said.
All of the employees from MTM’s home office near Seattle will stay on board, Cabañas said. Benchmark also is in discussions with the owners of the hotels to bring aboard property-level staff, suggesting Benchmark can provide better benefits to the employees at a cheaper cost. Cabañas said those employees most likely will be added to Benchmark’s payroll during the next 60 to 90 days.
“We’re incredibly happy with the team we have inherited,” he said.