LOS ANGELES—In the year since Bill Walshe became CEO of Viceroy Hotel Group, the Los Angeles-based hotel brand has reinforced its presence in the über-luxury space by adding key markets to its portfolio while retaining a stylish and unique approach to managing properties.
“I actually celebrate the fact that we’re building a brand based on an oxymoron—consistent individuality,” Walshe said during a telephone conversation last week, during which he reflected on Monday’s one-year anniversary of his start at Viceroy. “The key thing is a sense of community; it’s relevant to its market, and it feels like it ought to be there. … We’re about as far away from a cookie-cutter experience as you can get.”
Viceroy Hotel Group manages 15 hotels, including four that do not fly the Viceroy brand flag. The most recent addition was the Hotel Zetta in San Francisco—a property owned by Pebblebrook Hotel Trust.
In New York, Walshe has his sights set on the Viceroy New York, a property that will raise the stakes for the company because it’s the first Viceroy-branded hotel in the Big Apple. Although the company manages the Cassa Hotel in the city, the September opening of the Viceroy New York will be a big boost for the company, Walshe said.
“Getting that contract was a game-changing moment for our company,” he said of the deal signed with property owner Ark Investment Partners/Willow Hotels. “New York is a very regular stop for so many of our frequent guests. This has been a gap. It’s a location we need to be in and our customers want to be in.”
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Bill Walshe Viceroy Hotel Group |
Viceroy is a pure-play management company that on occasion takes what Walshe called a “very small financial stake” in a deal. He declined to identify any such arrangements with its current portfolio.
“I’m not going to confirm or deny that New York is among that,” he said. “We operate all of our hotels as if we have an investment stake. Our responsibility to our stakeholders is to create wealth—to generate ongoing profitability, cash flow and opportunities for future value creation.”
A 68-room Viceroy property in Istanbul is scheduled to open during the first quarter 2014, and the company has embarked on a Viceroy-branded project off the African coast in Santiago, Cape Verde, which is scheduled to open in 2017. The company’s most recent announcement was the $1-billion Viceroy Dubai Jumeirah Palm project in the United Arab Emirates that will open in 2017.
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Located on 57th Street between 6th and 7th avenues, the 240-room Viceroy New York will be a game-changer for Viceroy Hotels Group when it opens this fall, according to CEO Bill Walshe. |
More on the global stage
Walshe said the company’s expansion is far from complete.
“I expect to announce at least three more projects this year,” he said. “We have the capacity to hasten the pace. We have the organizational capacity to take on new hotels, whether they are immediate openings or new-build projects.”
Future value creation for the Viceroy brand and its partners will come from further global expansion.
“The biggest opportunity is for us to continue international growth,” Walshe said.
The executive cited London, Paris and Hong Kong as targets, but said Viceroy executives aren’t opposed to having properties in non-gateway cities as well.
“We’re a very courageous brand … We’ll move into more niche and in some cases emerging markets,” he said. “We have a couple of very exciting opportunities in Latin America at the moment, and we have another Caribbean opportunity.”
Viceroy is establishing a hub in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, to look after its interests in that part of the world, including Abu Dhabi, the Maldives, Dubai and Istanbul.
“With the geographic separation and cultural separation, and the time difference, we are more efficient having people in markets for markets,” Walshe said. “As the company grows, we need to decentralize.”
Catering to customers
Walshe said there’s a fine line that luxury hotels need to walk to stay relevant in consumers’ minds.
“There are (hotels) out there that are so modern, so cool that they are almost perishable cool,” he said. “There are established hotel brands and cool hotel brands, and we occupy a space between them. It’s all about the guests, the fundamentals of what makes a great hotel stay. We interpret that in a way to an audience that appreciates something more contemporary.”
Walshe said the global expansion has made Viceroy successful in attracting younger, progressive guests. That’s why creating emotional wealth for customers is a key part if Viceroy’s ideology.
“We want to maximize the time guests stay with us—time is the one thing in their lives they feel they don’t have control over,” Walshe said.
Authenticity at the property level is essential to drive rate and commands repeat stays from guests seeking a luxury-hotel experience, Walshe said.
With growth comes challenges, and Walshe said the biggest challenge for the entire hotel industry is finding talent.
“The challenge that keeps me awake at night … making sure today that I am growing the next generation of leadership within the organization,” he said. “We have to recognize talent at an early age, help them close gaps in their experience.
“Not all of the talent I require is going to come from within the brand, so having a brand of choice that emerging talent in the industry wants to work for is an important facet.”