With HD Expo + Conference 2023 less than a month away, here is a preview of some of the industry professionals you’ll hear inspiring insights from during the three-day event at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas, May 2nd–4th. Register today!
Larry Traxler
SVP, Global Head Architecture + Design
Hilton Worldwide
Since joining Hilton in 2009, Larry Traxler has overseen the development and completion of hundreds of properties across the hospitality behemoth’s 18 brands, including its recently announced first foray into the premium economy sector with Spark. Traxler discusses industry trends, some of his 2,800 projects in the works, and what’s next for Hilton.
Given the challenges of the past three years, how are you feeling about 2023 versus 2022?
We opened more than a hotel a day in 2022, and everybody was saying that it was going to be heavy lifting. The financial world was going to put constraints on growth, slow recovery from the pandemic, and Asia-Pacific was going to limit our ability to grow. Our earnings results that just came out shows that we beat almost every single category and we’re 1 percent shy of 2019 levels. So, the recovery is still robust.
Where are you seeing the most growth?
For many years now, we’ve been seeing the growth in the Caribbean and Latin America regions, continuing to surpass expectations. We’re starting to see a lot of growth in Spain, Greece, and Italy, where it’s been a bit tepid for a while. And then the Middle East just continues to boom. Outside of the [megaprojects] in Saudi Arabia, in Doha, Qatar [where] we’ve recently opened the Waldorf Doha Lusail. We’re getting ready to open the Waldorf Astoria Doha West Bay as well. So two Waldorfs in one city in a year is pretty ambitious.
What’s the biggest trend right now in terms of guest expectations?
The desire for connection to the outdoors. It’s no surprise that if luxury and resorts are booming, these are happening in places that have mountains, beaches, or are in remote environment-oriented areas. We don’t build a ballroom or a prefunction space that doesn’t have the ability to break immediately out onto an event lawn anymore unless we’re in an urban environment where we have no ability to do that.
HBA also crafted interiors for the Waldorf Astoria Cancun, which features a simple materiality that imbues an organic quality
Tell us about Hilton’s newest brand.
We recently launched Spark, our first foray into premium economy and we’re on track to open, hopefully, 50 properties by year-end [in the U.S.]. Spark is all conversions. [After renovations], conversions are probably the next biggest opportunity to achieve our net unit growth goals, whether that means another brand converting into our brand or one of our brands converting up and elevating their level or adaptive reuse.
What projects can we look forward to?
We’re getting very close to opening our first purpose-built Signia Hotel that’s not a conversion [at the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta]. So that’s pretty exciting. [It will be a] 1,000-room property with state-of-the-art meeting and event space adjacent to that stadium that has amazing indoor-outdoor spaces to enjoy the tailgating. We [also] have some amazing all-inclusive properties coming up, [including] one in Punta Cana, Mexico. We [also have] a lot of exciting resort projects coming up in Greece, and the Hilton in Athens—which is one of the first Hiltons outside of the Americas—is being given a breath of new life and being converted to a Conrad.
Hear more from Larry:
Brand Identity: Leaders Take on the Future
May 2nd, 2–3 p.m.
Location: HD Park
HD | IHSP Owners’ Roundtable: Face-to-Face Conversations
May 3rd, 9:15–11 a.m.
Location: South Seas
Andrew Fay
President + Founding Partner
The Gettys Group Companies
An Australian native now residing in Chicago, Andrew Fay has spearheaded nearly three decades of growth at hospitality interior design, consulting, branding, and procurement firm the Gettys Group Companies—leading the firm to numerous awards and hundreds of hospitality projects over the globe. Fay shares why he’s bullish on the industry and how the company is adapting to a changing landscape.
What’s your view on the state of hospitality these days? How are things looking for the Gettys Group Companies?
We are feeling pretty great about it. Clearly the pandemic was like a gigantic wrecking ball coming at the hospitality sector. That’s one of the reasons we see it roaring back today, because there’s such massive pent-up demand for travel and tourism. You see that when you are on a plane, there’s never a spare seat. It’s hard to get a hotel room. When you get a hotel room, the rates are significantly greater than they were before the pandemic. That bodes well for businesses like ours that are very much focused on hospitality, design, development, branding, and procurement. The big brands and global hotel companies are publishing numbers that are at, if not better than, pre-pandemic levels. Despite all the headwinds, we are feeling very bullish about the hospitality sector.
How have you evolved your offerings and services?
Enthusiasm for experiential travel is significantly impacting the way that we design. The connection between branding and design is really inextricable—more so than it was previously—because of this whole notion of bringing the story to life. Our branding team is writing the script and our designers are bringing that to life in the built environment. Some of the things that are really driving guests’ decisions and their happiness relate to the environment and sustainability and diversity, equity, inclusion, and knowing that they are staying in hotels that are owned and operated by people who care. The big brands have these amazing goals and we’re a small company, but we can impact their goals one project at a time.
A fireplace warms a lounge at the Gettys Group-transformed Tribune Tower in Chicago, now a residential building
Any lessons learned from the past several years?
More and more, I’m committed to the importance of defining and integrating our company’s mission, vision, and values into our everyday culture. This has allowed us to build an exceptional firm that attracts, develops, excites, and retains an amazingly talented team. Our mission is simple: to make people free great. We start with our team members, extend out to our clients, and ultimately the guests. We are renewing our focus on enduring relationships that are built on trust, reliability, and integrity. We are all in this together. Following the pandemic, I feel a lot more connected to our incredible community, both internally and within the hospitality industry. I have realized that I am not built for remote work. I love being with our team members and our clients. It’s the source of my energy and how I create energy. I am a great booster for the travel industry as there’s no substitute for face-to-face connection.
What challenges do you think the industry still faces?
One of the big challenges of the industry is attracting talent. The more that we can communicate and commit to connecting with people and the colleges and universities and get them excited about the hospitality sector, the better off we are. One of the negative impacts of the pandemic is hospitality probably ended up with a bit of a bad reputation because it was beaten up so badly. Conveying the message that this is a really fascinating place to work, a fascinating space to be in, is a real opportunity for us.
Hear more from Andrew:
Business Sense: Advice from the Trenches
May 2nd, 4–5 p.m.
Location: Design Well
Aliya Khan
Vice President of Design, Global Design Strategies
Marriott International
Aliya Khan is the driving force behind the design approach for Marriott’s lifestyle portfolio. She helps to define the foundational elements of Aloft, AC Hotels, Autograph, Element, Le Méridien, Moxy, Renaissance, Tribute, and Westin brands, distinguishing each with a clear design personality and focus. We asked her for a glimpse into upcoming plans for some of her brands and a few secrets to success.
Given the uncertainties of the past three years, what are your strategies for 2023?
We are continuing to focus on the business of design and to solve problems differently—placing emphasis on what our guests want and what that means for design and experiences. More specifically, we’re digging deeper into sustainability, looking at how we execute renovations to be more in sync with trends over lifecycle, and creating smarter solutions for blended travel, to name a few.
What are some of your most exciting recent and upcoming properties?
We have just opened our 100th Element, which is a dual-brand property with Le Méridien in Salt Lake City Downtown—the first time bringing these two lifestyle brands under one roof. We are hard at work on our first adaptive reuse for Moxy Hotels in Banff, Canada. A partnership with Workshop/APD, we have had a really good time with this one with many playful ski-inspired details. Equally exciting, the Renaissance Porto Lapa in Portugal, with a strong modern architectural personality and easy walkable access to one of my favorite cities in the world.
How are you continuing to evolve your brands?
Westin Hotels & Resorts continues to be a focus for me. Now more than ever guests are attuned to wellbeing on the road and we continue to develop that story. A new face of Westin WORKOUT Fitness Studios is one of many design programs being launched this year, with some hotel projects exemplifying this in the works. This effort is focused on embracing key concepts around recovery and hydration and actively placing them into the experience.
Located at the Marriott Bethesda Downtown at Marriott HQ, designed by Rottet Studio, Seventh State Restaurant opens to a patio
What is an emerging trend in terms of guest expectations?
Blended travel is front of mind. Both as it pertains to continued evolution of our extended-stay brands, but also in our focus around leisure and what that means for each segment and pricepoint. [The recent launch of] Apartments by Marriott Bonvoy is another thread to this evolving story.
Biggest challenges of the moment?
Trying to do it all! The travel landscape is ever-evolving, and each new move is a springboard for new ideas. It’s fast, but the ability to quickly think and respond is also the thrill of our world.
What are your keys to successful project partnerships?
The best projects are the one with passionate voices that can push and pull to sculpt an idea. The Marriott Hotels property at our new global headquarters in Bethesda was a perfect example of that. The design firms, the ownership group, and of course our own internal disciplines all had a part in taking this iconic legacy brand and shaping it to be a modern house of kindness. Gensler set the stage with a series of urban architectural gestures that flow from the inside out. Rottet Studio brought the personality of the location with a modern painterly hand. The lighting, art, styling, and landscape all layered in to finish the experience.
Hear more from Aliya:
Brand Identity: Leaders Take on the Future
May 2nd, 2–3 p.m.
Location: HD Park
HD | ISHP Owners’ Roundtable: Face-to-Face Conversations
May 3rd, 9:15–11 a.m.
Location: South Seas
Tiffany Cooper
Head of Development, North America and Caribbean
Kimpton Hotels & Restaurants
With nearly 30 years of hospitality experience, and having started her career with Kimpton, Tiffany Cooper was recently named the company’s head of development, responsible for leading the Kimpton development team and expanding its portfolio in North America through hotel conversions, adaptive reuse, and new-build opportunities for both franchised and management agreements. Wright offers a few insights into Kimpton’s growing development pipeline and brand evolution.
What does your current chapter as head of development for Kimpton look like?
Right now, at Kimpton, we remain focused on smart, strategic growth with collaborative owners. We will continue to align our brand with quality projects to fuel expansion into new markets. Kimpton was founded more than 40 years ago as a predominantly urban brand, but we continue to evolve our geographic distribution. Beyond the cities we’ve been known for, we now have an international presence in a variety of secondary, tertiary, and resort markets. In 2018, we launched a franchise option to allow for additional growth with a new group of partners, and we continue to pursue new concepts and opportunities, including signing our first all-inclusive resort in Riviera Maya, Mexico with an experienced operator, Playa Hotels & Resorts. Having the ability to build out our platform with strong third-party operators gives us more flexibility and allows us to expand our footprint by reaching into those new markets. In the post-COVID world, we’re seeing opportunity with the rise of the nomadic traveler to explore more suburban locations and urban tertiary markets. Currently, Kimpton has a robust growth trajectory, which includes more than 40 new domestic and international properties in our pipeline.
An aerial view of the Kimpton Hacienda Tres RÃos Resort, an all-inclusive revamp set to launch in Riviera Maya, Mexico in 2024
How do you see Kimpton continuing to evolve?
There is a long runway of opportunity for our iconic boutique brand, and we have some very exciting new projects coming soon which will bring the Kimpton brand to life for consumers in new ways. When Bill Kimpton founded our company and originated the boutique concept in the U.S. more than four decades ago, Kimpton was considered a disrupter in the hotel space. Fast forward to today, and Kimpton has evolved into a sophisticated, yet playful, design-led brand that can be curated to show up in a variety of different spaces and places with our own unique flair—whether that be conversions, new-build hotels, or historic adaptive reuse projects. The latter we first pioneered in the 1980s. This gives us immense opportunity to grow both domestically and internationally. To date, our international growth, fueled by our IHG acquisition in 2015, has resulted in a total of 18 opened and operating international hotels in the last eight years with another 41 in the pipeline.
What are some of the most exciting recent and upcoming properties?
In North America, we will be opening a new hotel in Charlottesville on the grounds of the University of Virginia Darden School of Business, and we are eager to open the first of two boutique hotels in the charming neighborhood of Polanco in Mexico City later this summer. We also are under construction for a hotel in San Antonio, Texas, along with a new hotel in Denver’s booming Denver Tech Center neighborhood. Internationally, we recently opened a new modern resort in Mallorca, Spain, and we are excited to have a luxury resort in Roatán, Honduras opening later this year with destinations like Bali, Budapest and Hong Kong in the coming years as well.
Hear more from Tiffany:
HD | IHSP Owners’ Roundtable: Face-to-Face Conversations
May 3rd, 9:15–11 a.m.
Location: South Seas
Business Sense: What Clients Want
May 3rd, 12:30–1:30 p.m.
Location: HD Park
Jackie Wright
Founder + Principal
Pineapple Procurement
With more than 10 years in the industry, Jackie Wright founded Pineapple Procurement, now celebrating its fifth anniversary, to lend her keen eye for branding and design to FF&E and OS&E procurement projects for clients and brands including Marriott, IHG, Hilton, Viceroy, and independent owners, among others. Wright shares insights into current purchasing challenges and the secrets to great collaboration.
What’s your process when working with a designer or firm on a project?
Pineapple’s process is pretty simple: we do everything we can to support the designer’s mission. We bury ourselves in the details, ask lots of questions, and listen to their specific goals. From there, we hunt and gather all the information we’ll need for a successful partnership, present our findings, and accept feedback with open arms. We are always collecting and sharing information, tracking details, and using our skills to best support the designer or firm.
How does your background inform your approach to procurement?
Having always been resourceful, I can do a lot with a little. Being a strong leader and having a bullish mentality probably helps, too, but I’m an avid believer in the ‘where there’s a will, there’s a way’ mindset—and I love being the one that finds the way. Whether it’s a budget or schedule challenge, supporting the design mission for a project requires being resourceful and finding alternate routes to make things work. We’re obsessed with the quality of our work. Regardless of project size, we are attentive and go the extra mile. Our team has over 25 years of experience with a focus on boutique and soft brand hotels. Over the course of my career, I’ve worked in various industries, including hospitality, interior design, visual merchandising, project management, and buying/sourcing, which have all prepared me for the meticulous and detailed work that is so important to FF&E and OS&E procurement.
What are your current biggest challenges?
Procurement is an endless list of details, information gathering, and legwork. Our process is schedule-driven, straightforward, aboveboard, and thorough, therefore, we need realistic schedules to allow us to produce quality work. One of the biggest challenges right now is managing expectations around timelines. We combat this by establishing client goals and expectations and develop a strong strategic plan at the commencement of every project.
The colorful lobby living room at the voco Chicago Downtown, designed by Gensler
What is one recent project that was a success?
We had an exceptionally positive experience working with the project team on the voco Chicago Downtown. It’s an IHG dual-brand hotel with 523 guestrooms designed by Gensler in Chicago. The dynamic collaboration between Pineapple Procurement and the client, general contractor, design, brand, installers, and every other contributor was an incredible experience that made all of us happy to go the extra mile.
What’s on the boards for Pineapple?
A few projects that we are excited about right now include an Autograph Collection Hotel in Washington State, an independent boutique hotel in Vail, a collection of independent properties in Key West, and a Tribute Portfolio hotel in Southern California.
Hear more from Jackie:
Business Sense: Ask the Purchasers
May 3rd, 1:30–2 p.m.
Location: HD Social Hub
