Bob Alter CEO, Sunstone Hotels Bob Alter, CEO of Sunstone Hotels, has a plate full of intriguing activities for 2003. He is actively on the prowl to purchase more upper upscale hotels, on top of the 14 he snagged with the help of equity partner Westbrook Hotel Partners IV at year’s end from Wyndham International for the sum of $516 million. That particular move gave Sunstone a coast-to-coast, national presence for the first time in company history, marking a true departure from previous intense focus on just the West Coast. Alter’s plan is to acquire more four-star hotels, using the bountiful equity through Sunstone’s relationship with Westbrook. He will also continue to put the expertise of his veteran management team in place to run the operations of the entire portfolio. “We’ve truly taken Sunstone to the next level in terms of being more national,” Alter told HOTEL BUSINESS® But there is much more going on behind the scenes at Sunstone. Alter is working up plans to take Sunstone into public REIT status again this year. Realizing that goal would reflect a stunning switch in strategy, seeing that he took the company private, with the help of Westbrook, a mere three years ago. Why make such a move at this time? Alter’s logic is that the markets are bound to appreciate the value of hard-core real estate assets sooner or later. Meanwhile, Alter is also working to upgrade existing properties, left over from the portfolio Sunstone owned before it went private. He has already converted several properties in San Diego’s burgeoning Old Town district, and will continue the strategy throughout the year. As he brings these hotels to the next level he’ll also oversee the renovations at all of the properties just acquired from Wyndham. On top of all this, Alter is working internally to increase the participation in Sunstone’s proprietary, Internet-based purchasing platform, BuyEfficient. This consortium presently has 450 hotels on its rapidly growing lineup of participants, and Alter said he plans to add this latest portfolio of properties to the overall mix as well. —Ruthanne Terrero Adam Aron Chairman/CEO, Vail Resorts It was no “snow job” when Chairman/CEO of Vail Resorts, and Chairman of RockResorts, Adam Aron confided to HOTEL BUSINESS® his fondest wish for 2003 would be to get 50 inches of snow falling in the Rockies, though several high-quality, luxury hotel properties falling into his lap would certainly be cause to rejoice as well. As Aron pointed out, this would reprise the veritable blizzard of activity that blanketed his high-country part of the lodging/travel world as he continues to build his operations into “a real hotel company.” Over the course of the past year or so, Aron and his associates racked up some $200 million in acquisitions— Heavenly Ski Resort in Lake Tahoe, RockResorts, Ritz-Carlton Rancho Mirage, Vail Marriott— and built the Ritz-Carlton Bachelor Creek. Certainly equally as important as the organization’s physical holdings in Vail, Beaver Creek, Breckenridge, Keystone, and others, were the personnel acquisitions of former Fairmont president/CEO Ed Mace and ex-Hyatt Development and Mandarin executive Mike Schindler to the RockResorts side of the business. With these pieces in place, Aron said his priority going forward is to further improve on profitability as he looks to grow the hospitality/lodging side of his operations— particularly on a year-round basis. While he is buoyed by the fact that Vail Resorts “accounts for 11% of the U.S. ski industry,” it is Aron’s ambition to push the non-ski portion of his operations, improving on the 25% share it now enjoys. In ski parlance, there are very few “gates” Aron has missed over the course of his years within the travel industry. To put it in perspective, Aron initially got his executive career off the ground a quarter-century ago with Pan Am, then connected with Western Airlines, checked into Hyatt Hotels, booked a return flight to the aviation industry via United Airlines, and was piped aboard Norwegian Caribbean Line prior to reaching his current Vail Resorts’ pinnacle six years ago. Accordingly, whether it entails buying and/or building hotels, or securing more property-management contracts for RockResorts, to go along with the five picked up last year, Aron’s forecast is for more than just a flurry of expansion activity in the coming year. —Michael Billig Donald Barbieri Chairman/President/CEO, WestCoast Hospitality Corp. Don Barbieri likes to run at least three miles every morning to clear his head before beginning his business day as chairman, president and CEO of WestCoast Hospitality. He must have been slapping the pavement double-time in 2002, for his mind brought into very sharp focus just what the future of the growing public company would look like in the years ahead. For example, this time last year WCH was completing the acquisition of Red Lion Hotels and Inns from Hilton Hotels Corp. As it steps into 2003, the company not only has integrated the brand into its portfolio, it has re-branded almost two dozen proprietary WestCoast Hotels, converting them to Red Lions for a total brand count of 65, with only seven WestCoast properties extant at presstime. Barbieri also apparently did the math while running. He added a national sales strategy that combined the Red Lion and WestCoast sales teams to promote cross selling, as well as partnerships with both LRA Worldwide to implement a refreshed QA/performance measurement program and Patrick Henry Promotions to create an F&B strategy to ensure consistency across the portfolio. This Feb. 26 he will add advanced reservations software in partnership with Micros Fidelio, utilizing the Opera reservations system, allowing the company to put single-image inventory out through all of WestCoast’s distribution channels, enabling “tremendous” rate management and crafting of individual property websites. Barbieri also subtracted 80.1% ownership interest in WestCoast’s headquarters building and agreed to sell the WestCoast Kalispell Center Hotel and Kalispell Center
