NASHVILLE, Tennessee — Even though 2025 has proven to be a more challenging year than expected, hotel companies such as Olympia Hospitality continue to move forward.
In a video interview at the recent Hotel Data Conference, Sara Masterson, president of Olympia Hospitality, said her hotel ownership and management company is still finding ways to grow.
Olympia has been busy this year adding properties to its portfolio, she said. Among its more recent additions are the Hotel Genevieve, a JdV by Hyatt property, in Louisville, Kentucky, and the Hilton Garden Inn Arvada in Colorado. It’s also now managing the John Carver Inn & Spa in Plymouth, Massachusetts, as a third-party operator.
“I think the additions this year are really reflective of kind of the breadth of properties that Olympia works with and is able to specialize with both independent and on the franchise side,” she said.
In recent years, Olympia has been focused on the independent hotel space, both through soft-brand collections and full indies, she said. It continues to see accelerated growth in this segment for its management operations.
Olympia is also keeping an eye out for high-quality franchise opportunities for both its third-party management operations as well as its ownership side, Masterson said. The company works with all the major franchise companies.
“We're really looking for properties that we can make sure we can leverage franchise performance to drive profitability to the properties,” she said.
It’s difficult to paint the current hotel demand environment with a broad brush, Masterson said. Some segments have been resilient, specifically Olympia’s luxury properties, resort-style properties and smaller properties in luxury markets.
At the same time, some of its traditional drive-to markets with focused-service franchise models that depend on government demand have seen some slippage, she said.
“Our approach has really had to be very tailored, not only to each property type but even to the specific geography that properties are located in, because they're not all balancing each other out,” she said. “They're not all performing at the same level.”
One of Olympia’s mantras is that as an organization, it has a high-touch, highly tailored management approach, which has served it well during periods of inconsistency and unpredictability, Masterson said.
During the pandemic, everyone fell off the cliff together, she said. The Great Recession was the same way. Everyone saw the same elements of change in travel. The current environment is more segmented, and it’s much more property-type dependent.
Inquiry volume across the Olympia portfolio for group travel has been consistent with where it has been before, but the conversion of that group inquiry is lower now, she said. Groups still want to travel and meet, but there’s a lot of hesitancy because of the uncertainty out there.
“I think that's a pretty consistent trend just across the industry right now,” she said.
Masterson said she’s hopeful for more stability after moving through this period of uncertainty as the hotel industry enters 2026.
“I think it's the inconsistency and the uncertainty that is creating the most angst right now, and it has people, a lot of people, sitting on the sidelines,” she said.
For more from the interview with Olympia Hospitality's Sara Masterson, watch the video embedded above.