ORLANDO — While the passing of Cobblestone Hotels founder and CEO Brian Wogernese during the week leading up to the company’s annual convention lent a somber air to the event, the excitement attendees had for the brand’s future was evident.
Josie Kilgore, brand president, said the conference’s theme was “community,” and it’s a concept she said Wogernese lived by.
“He loved nothing more than people coming together to share their passion for an industry he genuinely loved so much, which is why the conferences were always so dear to him. It truly gives us all this sense of community within our organization to be surrounded by like-minded people,” she said. “Our Cobblestone community is made up of some of the strongest people that I know. The last couple of years have been trying, chaotic and hard for so many members of our community. Loss, illness, staffing, the pandemic and business in general have really tested us and I know many of you in this room can relate to that. But I do know I speak for Brian when I say that we are so proud of our community, some of the most resilient individuals that I will ever know.”
Going forward, Kilgore will remain in the brand president role and will continue to work with the rest of the executive teams and ownership to ensure the brand’s continued success, according to Jeremy Griesbach, president of development for Cobblestone Hotels and a partner in the company.
“Brian Wogernese always ensured all the moving parts of our company work closely together; we will continue to move forward as a unified front with all departments, ownership team, and the Wogernese family,” Kilgore said. “I am confident we will continue to make him proud and carry on his legacy, together, as the Cobblestone family.”
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Griesbach said that 2022, from a business standpoint, has been a great year for Cobblestone.
“From a development standpoint, we have been so blessed,” he said. “The activity that is out there in the marketplace for new development has just been phenomenal. Our construction team is booked for the next couple of years.”
The brand stands at 166 total properties open or under construction, with locations in 28 states: “It's about a 9 percent growth rate, which I think any of the national brands would definitely be more than happy with,” Griesbach said. Another 12 properties should sign by the end of the year.
The company is as far west as Washington (the property is signed and working on the permitting process, which hopefully will be done by the end of the year, according to Griesbach) and as far east as Pennsylvania.
“And then think about all the markets we have to backfill in each state we're in,” he said. “We've got 31 or 32 properties in Wisconsin right now. There's no reason we can't have double or triple that and still not have all markets in Wisconsin.”
Griesbach said filling in locations in the company’s current states is the its greatest opportunity and by focusing on developing more locations in those states, opportunities in new states will present themselves.
Cobblestone could be expanding its family as the industry’s recovery continues, with several ideas percolating, according to Griesbach.
“Due to the increased cost of development, it is hard for very small markets to cost justify hotels smaller than 45 rooms,” he said. “We are working on a new concept that will hopefully help make these markets cost effective again.”
Cobblestone’s target market is cities with populations of 3,000 to 7,000 people, but larger and smaller cities are possibilities depending on the community interest and the demand drivers.
“Small-town America does not get the highest of highs when it comes to the economy but it doesn't get the lowest of the lows,” he said. “It stays more than that middle and things just kind of keep humming, which I think most of us in this world are pretty good with.”
While those smaller cities are vital to the company's growth goals, it will continue with its efforts to gain traction in cities that are slightly larger, as well.
“We've got a ton of opportunity in a lot of these smaller towns, which we've never gone away from. We understand that it's our bread and butter and our foundation,” Griesbach said. “We want to keep growing that so we're working more on that and pushing on that. [But we’re also] trying to stay very cognizant of making sure that we're pushing in some of these bigger markets that have a lot of national brand competition.”
Rewards Update
The Cobblestone Rewards program was revamped two years ago, according to Nicole Behnke, a member of the brand services team, and since then numbers have continued to improve.
“We have increased the number of signups from this time last year by 55 percent, and that's thanks to all of you out of the properties supporting the program,” she said. “We had an increase in points earn by 31 percent. Qualifying nights have been increased by 30 percent and the roomnights have been increased by 78 percent. ... [The] overall revenue that our rewards members have generated for our company has also increased by 33 percent."
To put some numbers to that, year to date there have been 14,320 member signups, nearly 53 million points earned, 18,669 qualified stays resulting in 42,796 roomnights, and nearly $5 million in qualified night revenue.
A major focus for the company moving forward is to ensure that all the relevant information is acquired from each guest to enroll them in the program as well as to allow more ongoing communication.