LAS VEGAS — After Choice Hotels International hosted the first SOAR (Supporting Ownership Access & Representation) development seminar ahead of its 68th Annual Convention, the company hosted a roundtable on the platform and what it can do for underrepresented communities.
John Lancaster, vice president, emerging markets, franchise development and owner relations at Choice, began the roundtable, started the roundtable with some notable statistics: According to the National Association of Black Hotel Owners, Operators and Developers, only about 2 percent of hotels are owned by Black people—and that is up from 1 percent just a few years ago. “We're here to make sure that that moves forward,” Lancaster said, noting a 2022 Pennsylvania State University study that found for every four and a half men holding ownership and development roles in senior positions, one woman held such a role, and for every woman who owns a hotel, there are nine and a half male owners.
Choice, Lancaster continued, has a “longstanding history” of bringing diverse hotel franchisees into the system. “We are enhancing and furthering this commitment with our announcement of SOAR.” The program, formerly known as Emerging Markets, has awarded and financially supported more than 370 executed franchise agreements in the past 21 years. The program awarded nine Black and African American franchise deals and 17 deals through the HERtels program last year. Since the HERtels program launched in 2021, 80 women have participated in the program, leading to 59 new women-owned hotels.
Partnerships and Development
The roundtable included two Black husband-and-wife teams—both first-time hoteliers—who discussed the platform and what it can do for underrepresented communities.
Julian and Karie Brittano of the Brittano Group are developing Rook Hotels in South Boston, Va., a conversion of a historic property. The brand’s name comes from the position of rooks on a chessboard. “A rook has you covered from all angles,” Julian Brittano noted.
Choice and the SOAR team, he continued, have been very supportive partners in the initiative. “They pick up the phone,” he said. “That's been very helpful for us, to be able to call and pick their brains and get some guidance.” As new hoteliers, the Brittanos were unfamiliar with the industry and have been learning as they develop their project.
Karie Brittano has a background in construction as well as education, and saw hotels as a way to change communities for the better. “They hire, they employ, they educate, they train—and those are a lot of pieces and things that gravitated me to the SOAR program.” The platform provided a good environment for learning about the nuances of the industry, she continued. “You have a lot of things that you have to do ahead of time—pre-construction work that you don't even know about, the architectural fees, engineering, coordination, logistics.” Learning about pro formas and balance sheets was “a new education,” she added, joking that the project was like going through “Hospitality University.”
The Brittanos are developing in what Karie Brittano called an “extremely tertiary market,” and found that Choice was the only company that provided key money they could apply to their capital stack and that made sense for their pro forma.
Vaughn and Cassandra Irons own Priví—short for “Privilege”—an adaptive reuse of the former Sears building at the Mall at Stonecrest in a suburb of Atlanta. As principal of Stonecrest Resorts, Vaughn Irons has been planning to incorporate hospitality into the mixed-use project, and already is developing a new-construction, 110-room Tryp by Wyndham franchise through Wyndham Hotels & Resorts’ BOLD program. The project now is also set to get The Solstice as part of Choice’s Ascend Collection on the other side of the mall. The two properties, he said, will not compete with one another since the Solstice will cater largely to families and the Tryp will target adults.
Like the Brittanos, the Irons see hotels as a platform to develop communities. The building will have health and wellness facilities, an aquarium and a food hall with 13 restaurants and seven bars. “We're attempting to turn our community into a place where people don't come for two hours to shop and go home,” Vaughn Irons said. “We want them to stay for two days.” While the mall has other hotels nearby, the team wanted to make sure that the guest experience was consistent throughout each stay. “When they go to our saunas or if they go to our aquarium or anything else, we can control the quality of the experience that they have 100 percent of the time, which is why the hotel aspect is so important,” Vaughn Irons said.
The Irons closed on their franchise deal in the first quarter of 2024. They decided to go with a soft brand, Vaughn Irons said, because it gave them the flexibility to create a new brand image for what they were doing in their community. “It [won’t be] the hotel flag that people focus on but the customer service and the experience,” he added. When the Solstice opens, it will have a Caribbean aesthetic, targeting vacationers who can’t get to a beach for a getaway.
Challenges and Solutions
Cassandra Irons sees the SOAR program as a way to bring more underrepresented groups into hospitality leadership, much as AAHOA has done for the Asian American community for the past 35 years. As more People of Color become leaders in the hospitality sphere, the next generation within these communities will see opportunities not only for jobs, but for lifelong careers. “I don't think they will have a lot more advantages than what we have right now,” she said, “but the information, the knowledge and the education that we have will be very valuable to them.”
“You can't use 20th century solutions on 21st century problems,” Vaughn Irons said. “John and his team are working on solving the problems of today by offering solutions that are compatible with the generations of entrepreneurs that are coming forward today.” Choice’s strategy, he added, is based on relationships. “I bump into other developers in Alabama and different marketplaces and they'll say, ‘Oh, I met someone from Choice. We're working through this project, etc., etc.’ And they have a personal relationship with the SOAR team.”