HotelsMag January/February 2026 | Page 41

vertically integrated company: it owns hotels, it manages hotels, it brands hotels. Presently, there are around 50 properties across North America, a sui generis spread of properties if there ever was— from urban convention-center properties, such as the Omni Dallas Hotel, across the street from the Dallas Convention Center, to The Omni Homestead in Virginia, a resort cozied into the Allegheny Mountains with roots that stretch back to the 18th century and where Thomas Jefferson once sought ablution in the property’ s nearby warm springs. It recently wrapped up a $ 170-million renovation project.
To hear it from Alexander, the intention has never been to commit to constructing such a disparate portfolio of properties; it’ s just turned out that way. It has landmark hotels like Omni Parker House in Boston, which opened in 1855, to its newest property, Omni Fort Lauderdale, an 801-room, glass-sheathed hotel that opened in December 2025,
Omni PGA Frisco Resort & Spa in Texas will play host to the 2027 PGA Championship.
with direct access to the city’ s convention center.
Then there is sport. Omni split the fairway with the 2023 opening of Omni PGA Frisco Resort & Spa, which will play host to the 2027 PGA Championship. Beyond its golf resorts, Omni has a knack for hooking up with sports franchises. Omni Frisco Hotel at The Star is adjacent to the Dallas Cowboys headquarters and practice facility and is partly owned by Cowboys owner Jerry Jones; Omni Hotel at The Battery Atlanta has ballpark-facing rooms that allow guests to catch Atlanta Braves games at adjacent Truist Park; Omni Viking Lakes Hotel in Minnesota is
next door to the Minnesota Vikings’ headquarters. Omni is in discussions with other sports teams around doing these kind of mixed-use developments with a sports anchor, Alexander said.
ROCK STEADY Happenstance, not programmatic planning, is one way to describe Omni’ s growth footprint.“ There was never a grand plan to say,‘ Let’ s come up with this eclectic portfolio that we can then kind of hang our hat on,’” Alexander said. Instead, he continued, it’ s happened for a couple of reasons.“ For a smaller, independent brand like us, to be successful, we have to be in highly differentiated locations with compelling,
unique experiences,” for one, he said. Its second strength is that Omni sits at the crossroads of group and leisure business, a best-of-both-worlds scenario that allows its properties to resonate with both cohorts, which means demand stays strong. About 50 % of Omni’ s overall business is derived from groups, large corporate meetings or annual association gatherings, for instance.
February 2026 marks 30 years of TRT Holdings’ ownership of Omni Hotels & Resorts. TRT is a private holding company based in Dallas that was founded by Bob Rowling in 1989. Unlike Marriott or Hilton, Omni is not publicly traded, which allows it to grow at its own
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