Global Update
New eNergy
Finland ’ s Kämp Group in August opened its ninth hotel , the 130-room Lilla Roberts in a downtown Helsinki building originally designed to serve as the head offices and a power station of Helsinki Energy . Recreated by architect Jaakko Puro over the past two years , Lilla Roberts has two-bedroom suites with high ceilings ( shown here ) and houses Krog Roba , a restaurant focusing on Nordic food , as well as a hip bar , Lilla E . Taking center stage at the hotel is a service philosophy designed around the Nordic " hygge " thinking , referring to all that is good and pleasant in life .
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Margaritaville is a destination , says John Cohlan , which makes it more than a famous Jimmy Buffet song . In fact , it is a growing hotel business and a natural sweet spot for the entertainer who parlayed his famous beach anthem into a restaurant , merchandise , entertainment and , for the past four years , hotel business into a US $ 1 billion a year enterprise .
The first offshoot , the Margaritaville restaurant , which opened in Key West , Florida , in 1987 , still stands today . However , Cohlan , the CEO of Margaritaville Holdings , says the right hotel licensing opportunity didn ’ t surface until four years ago in Pensacola , Florida , when the owner of a new US $ 45 million investment changed her mind about branding just months before opening and pioneered the Margaritaville hotel concept .
Today , Cohlan can tout the likes of Barry Sternlicht ’ s Starwood Capital as a lead investor in the new 349-room Margaritaville resort on the beach in Hollywood , Florida , which is managed by Coral Hospitality . The Margaritaville team sells the brand license , manages the multiple F & B outlets as well
No wastiNg away here
as the Margaritaville customer experience , which it has honed over the past 28 years .
Without hotel experience when it made the first deal in Pensacola , Cohlan recruited the Palm Beach , Florida-based CEO of The Breakers , Paul Leone , to consult and help navigate the company to attract the right people on the hotel brand management side . To date , more than US $ 1 billion in capital has gone into developing the brand with
Margaritaville Holdings putting many of the hotel projects together .
After the fifth property opens in Hollywood , the next hotel under development is in Orlando , Florida . Add two vacation ownership partnership mixed-use resorts with Wyndham Vacation Ownership and Cohlan and company has developed some critical mass with several more projects under development – mostly in the southeastern U . S ., as well as the Caribbean , where the group is also looking at all-inclusive opportunities .
Colhan , with global aspirations , says within the next six months , two or three other hotel license deals will be finalized and will include a property that will open next year , another that will be rebranded and one new development .
“ We have always thought hotels should be a growth driver for the brand ,” Colhan says . “ It wasn ’ t at first because it is so capital intensive and we had to walk first . When the Pensacola hotel opened about four years ago we got our start . For someone with a US $ 45 million investment , our brand made sense . We ’ ve grown quickly from there .”
18 HOTELS November 2015 www . hotelsmag . com