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pace, free from the distraction of Wall Street and its deafening call for constant expansion. Not having to concentrate solely on that allows Omni to be a true steward of hospitality.“ Every single person in our company is focused on one thing: the guest,” Alexander said. Owning and managing its hotels allows for that attention, he added: There is no third party inserted to manage an asset, an asset that is owned by Omni. It’ s a straight line from hotel guest to the top.“ We control every touch point,” Alexander said.
A private vertical integrated structure allows Omni to take a more holistic focus and approach toward the customer experience, concentrating more on that than delivering next quarter’ s numbers. It’ s something Alexander understands and
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is fully appreciative of.“ In a commodity industry, scale is the only thing that matters,” he said, and in the hotel industry that means more hotels and more loyalty members, constantly chumming the waters to lure in more and more.
Omni’ s Select Guest Loyalty Program is infinitesimal compared to its peers, but is based on spend rather than frequency, which adds a dash of substance.“ If everybody is a Hilton Honors member or everybody is a Marriott Bonvoy member, then nobody is a Bonvoy member or nobody is an Honors member,” Alexander said.
Still, he understands Omni’ s limitations. With only 50 hotels, it makes it hard to connect the dots and keep loyal guests in the loop.“ The drawbacks are clear,” he said.“ You might love us, but if you’ re going to a wedding in
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Kansas City, sorry, you can’ t stay with us.”
And while Omni is not adding a new hotel a week, it isn’ t sitting pat. Omni breaks ground on hotels in Midland, Texas, and Raleigh, N. C., this year and is working on a deal in New Orleans for a 1,000- room convention-center hotel. Meanwhile, Omni is currently under construction on Omni Pontoque Resort at Punta de Mita, in Mexico, which will be its first property outside the U. S. and Canada when it opens in 2027. Omni is deploying north of a billion dollars of capital in these four new hotels. It shows conviction; it also shows smarts. One of the other benefits of being a private hotel company is that it can renovate assets on its own timeline. While larger lodging companies and franchisors can force owners to
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renovate, Omni has the luxury of doing it at its own pace and discretion.“ We’ re not needlessly throwing capital at something,” Alexander said. Fresh off the Homestead renovation, Omni Houston is set to go under the knife this year.
Alexander may still be a tyro when it comes to his leadership position, but he’ s already looking years into the future, challenging the notion that the big brands are the guiding light in hospitality. How can they be, he pondered, if they fundamentally outsource the core competency of hospitality?
And, so, he sees it this way.“ Watch this play out over the next 30 years,” he said.“ In 30 years, we could be the prettiest girl at the dance. We jokingly refer to ourselves as the last real hospitality company.”
Or, maybe, he’ s serious.
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Omni Nashville Hotel is connected to the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum. |
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42 hotelsmag. com Jan / Feb 2026 |