HD spoke with Alastair Thomann, CEO of Freehand and Generator, about the affects of COVID-19 on his hotels and hostels, the upside of operating Millennial- and Gen Z-focused brands, and the biggest lessons learned along the way.
What is the longterm impact of COVID-19 on the hotel industry?
We’ll see the biggest changes in the public areas. At the moment, some public areas aren’t even allowed to open, and those that are open are embracing contactless F&B and operating at a lower capacity with shorter hours. We have opened as much outside during the daytime as possible and that has been fantastic.
What we’re all going to see now, and what everyone anticipated, is a lot of consolidation. We’ll likely end up with a different hotel landscape than we had before with brands disappearing, individual hotels closing, and money waiting for the right opportunity.
With properties across the U.S. and Europe, what has been the global affect of the pandemic on your portfolio?
It has been fascinating how some markets have come back super quickly. There was short notice when it came to restrictions so we had to be flexible. Our gameplan had to change all the time, but it has been much better than we had feared back in March.
When we look at the profile of our guests, I anticipate we will go back to normal in the not too distant future. We target a young market and only serve a small percentage of corporate guests. Our Millennial consumers are coming back first, as well as families looking to book vacations. With our clientele, we’re quite lucky and we’re still confident that by 2021–2022 we’ll be back to pre-COVID numbers.
The Broker Shaker cocktail bar at Freehand New York, designed by Roman and Williams Buildings and Interiors
What hotel segments will we see more of in a post-COVID world?
Suites and aparthotels with units that include kitchens are enjoying higher demand. People want to have a kitchen so they don’t have to go to restaurants and mix with other people. We see brands attracting long-stay guests with deals to build occupancy but that’s a medium-term [solution]. Consumers are desperate to be social. Concepts, like ours, with common areas and F&B outlets and nightlife will come back strongly.
What has been your biggest lesson learned from COVID-19?
The biggest lesson has been how essential it is to be decisive and react to change. At a time like this, building and implementing a plan in five days is absolutely critical. We’ve learned that you have to show that you’re reacting immediately. Communicating via social channels that you’re open, having events, and [talking about] what you’re regulating builds confidence so you can continue to make money and help the brand survive. Depending on Millennials and Gen Z makes us resilient. It’s a customer base that wants to spend more money on experiences. Because of this, we were able to test out a lot of the theories we had about our brands and our guests.
What’s next for Generator and Freehand?
We used the downtime to accelerate and launch new F&B concepts. We’re debuting a new concept in Miami with Bar Lab, the team behind Broken Shaker, that we plan to expand to various rooftop bars. We are also investing money in standardizing our systems, so we come out of this with an even better operating model. In the past few months, we’ve made the best out of a bad situation, and we’ll come out of this as a slightly different portfolio.
The entrance at the Studio 11 Design-crafted Generator DC
The Roman and Williams-designed Freehand New York hotel
The Pillow Room at the Generator Miami
