PHOENIX—Shifting travel patterns have made secondary markets the place to be in the eyes of travelers, and Choice Hotels International is making sure developers can meet guests where they are.
The company is wrapping up this year’s Lodging Conference by launching a new prototype option for its Cambria Hotels brand that is designed specifically for secondary and leisure markets. The new prototype costs less to build and requires a smaller lot but still maintains the core brand hallmarks that the upscale brand promises, according to the company.
“It's going to be looked back on as just the natural progression and evolution of our growth story … and really it also speaks to the adaptability of the brand,” said Mark Shalala, SVP development-upscale brands and real estate at Choice. “We've created a very cost-effective new prototype option that's going to continue to provide the flexibility to developers have really come to love with the Cambria brand. We have to continue to grow the brand and scale the brand in a meaningful way that's going to drive value for our existing franchisees or continue to build brand equity.”
The prototype is appropriate for more than 300 secondary and leisure markets, according to Shalala, who stressed that it’s an option for upcoming properties, not a requirement.
Highlights of the new prototype:
- A lower cost-per-key by reducing square footage 20 percent
- Fewer employees than current brand requirements because of the reduction in rooms and public areas as well as an updated housekeeping model
- An enhanced marketplace and a 35 percent smaller kitchen that features a programmable vector cooking technology and a reduced culinary staffing model
The prototype features a streamlined structural design at the entry, in the lobby and other public spaces. The design also allows customization of locally inspired art and lobby packages that come with 50 percent computer aided design drawings and standard furniture, fixtures and equipment designed to lower the expense of design and architecture services.
The new prototype option is about 56,000 square feet instead of the 76,000 in the standard Cambria prototype. The smaller prototype has 107 keys as the “magic number” for success versus 127 keys in a typical Cambria property.
“If you talk to developers and you look at that compared to our upscale comp set, that's about as lean and mean as you can get and still be able to deliver that upscale scale and scope and guest experience,” Shalala said. “The smaller building can fit on less land. Prior to that we were looking at a 2.5 acre site; this would fit on 1.7 acres.”
There are currently more than 130 Cambria hotels open or in the pipeline across the U.S. Choice expects the first new optional prototype property to open at the end of 2023 or the beginning of 2024.
Check out Hotel Management’s October issue for more on the new optional Cambria prototype.