CHICAGO— The economic slump has created opportunities that may help Lodging Unlimited double the size of its portfolio within the next two years. According to Morris Lasky, founder/CEO of the hotel management and consulting firm based here, the portfolio will increase from its current 20 properties to 40 or 50 hotels within the next two years. “Owners and lenders who thought they had the experience to manage a hotel are now having difficulty and they are seeking us out. They are realizing that hotel management is not something you can just fall into,” Lasky said. The company recently signed agreements to manage two properties, he added, including a 140-room independent hotel in Petersburg, VA, and an 85-room Wingate Inn in Harrisburg, PA. Lasky said it was too soon to discuss plans for the properties. Lodging Unlimited has managed hotels with an asset value in excess of $5 billion and ranging in size from 50 to 1,500 rooms, Lasky noted. The company has experience with almost every major brand and property type as well as independent and boutique hotels, he added. More than half of the hotels in the company’s portfolio are straight management contracts and the other half are turnarounds. “We’ve done a lot of turnarounds with an average turnaround time of 18 months to take a hotel from dead loss to profit,” Lasky said. When Lodging Unlimited is contracted to help an ailing property, things happen quickly, according to Lasky. “We have gone in and managed hotels within 24 hours. When a hotel is not doing well, speed and accuracy is essential,” he said. He added that in one day, his firm placed operating teams in 17 hotels. “When we go in, we hit the ground running. Within a couple of days we have done a survey to find the problems and then move immediately to correct them,” Lasky said. Marketing receives a good deal of emphasis when a property is taken over, noted Richard Norton, president of Lodging Unlimited. Typically, a sales team will go in and do a “blitz,” making 500 to 600 calls during the first three days the company takes over. Norton added a “yield management” team is also brought in to analyze operations to discern where costs can be cut and what areas require investment.
