A Garner hotels king guestroom rendering . |
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HOTELS : What have your discussions with prospective owners been like ? Gilbride : We ’ re really excited by the interest we ’ ve received from the franchise community , who is intrigued about our flexible approach . We ’ ve already had more than 100 owners talking to our development team and saying , ’ If this is a space you ’ re going into , I have a location .’
We ’ d initially like to grow Garner hotels to around 500 hotels within the next 10 years . These hotels will typically show up first in the drive-to markets — more secondary locations , but we would and could put a Garner in Manhattan all day long !
HOTELS : Is there a certain type of asset best suited to convert to a Garner ?
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Gilbride : With conversions , there ’ s an ideal footprint , but we have designed a hotel that ’ s about 80 to 90 keys with room sizes around 300 square feet . That ’ s how we ’ ve built our guest room design for a hotel that needs a full renovation . The public space needs to support the complimentary ’ Make it Yours ’ hot breakfast , but we do not require some of the amenities — such as a business center or meeting space — that you ’ d see in a Holiday Inn Express hotel .
HOTELS : Tell us more about the most important meal of the day : breakfast . Gilbride : Our Garner hotels properties will feature the ’ Make it Yours ’ complimentary breakfast bar . ’ Make it Yours ’ is about giving some freedom
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to , for instance , build your own egg scramble bowl or sandwich or your own yogurt or oatmeal with varying toppings . We know that hot breakfast is important to guests in the midscale space and we believe that we can establish breakfast as a hallmark of the Garner hotels brand — much as we have done with other IHG brands — through focused , high-quality offerings that guests can select from and customize for their tastes and needs .
From an operational standpoint , we ’ ve looked to utilize products that our hotels are also using in our Holiday Inn Express and Staybridge Suites estates . That includes exploring how we ensure , from a scale perspective , that our owners can plug into that volume , which means discounts
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we have on food products and creating a cost-efficient breakfast . From a labor standpoint , you might have one breakfast attendant .
We also recognize opportunities beyond breakfast to deliver the quality and consistency guests are used to in this segment . It ’ s a matter of prioritizing a few things and doing them at an elevated level . So , we ’ ll offer flavored water upon arrival to welcome guests . We ’ re doing a cookie happy hour in the afternoon around check-in time . And we ’ ll have a small market for things like water , soda , chips and other snacks .
HOTELS : How do you differentiate Garner hotels from fellow IHG midscale brand avid hotels ? Are there similarities ?
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72 hotelsmag . com Nov / Dec 2023 |