Stay informed, stay flexible and think about guests as non-monolithic – that sounds like sage advice for hoteliers, and it should. Those are the biggest takeaways from the pandemic from Philip “Flip” Maritz, a prolific hotel owner who has co-sponsored multiple investment funds (total assets of US$7 billion at Broadreach Capital Partners and Maritz, Wolff & Co. with long-time Partner Lew Wolff).
HOTELS published an original profile on Maritz in early September, but today’s version goes deeper on his industry insights as well as his plans for continued development.
Maritz preaches patience and acceptance of bigger forces at play today – not just COVID, but how people work and play differently with new sets of expectations. Having good timing doesn’t hurt either, he adds, referring to when his group contrarily started investing in luxury during the S&L crisis in the 1980s and 90s.
Maritz kept these principles in mind when he most recently created his first blank slate-hotel, The Ameswell in California’s Silicon Valley, which is a 255-room design and tech-oriented property that has a sustainable bent and offers the first cool-stay option in Mountain View built for less than US$500,000 a key, according to Maritz. With interiors by San Francisco’s BAMO, multiple food and beverage venues, tech-forward amenities, and a world-class art collection, the newly opened independent property was conceptualized to provide a centralized communal hub for both travelers and locals.
It’s really a business hotel, Maritz said, that happens to have a “front yard” with an Air Stream serving drinks and food, cornhole games on the lawn and plenty of space to hang out.
In an era where content – not just fancy linen and Michelin-star dining – matters, which Maritz knows all about, having developed and redeveloped properties like The Carlyle in New York City, Little Dix Bay in the British Virgin Islands and the Mansion on Turtle Creek in Dallas, The Ameswell is experientially focused to match the moment.
Located near the campuses of Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon and other tech titans, the vibe at The Ameswell is modern, non-traditional luxury to attract a younger and more local crowd. The focus is less on traditional amenities and more on healthy food, water and air, fast internet, lots of power outlets and quiet rooms with a focus on sleep and quality bathrooms. “I’m obsessed with a good shower,” the good-natured Maritz said.
In a wide-ranging two-hour interview over two days, Maritz, who also chaired or co-chaired several owned hotel management companies (Rosewood, Fairmont and Dolce Hotels and Resorts), talked about everything from lessons learned to his next move with a legendary brand name.
HOTELS: How has COVID changed you as a developer and owner?
Flip Maritz: Broadly, it has added another macro-risk… More directly, it just reinforces importance of the basics: hygiene, health, the need to stay connected to community and awareness that different groups can view the same problems very differently.
H: How are your priorities shifting?
FM: It’s a function of age and modestly a degree of success where you can focus a little bit more on the long term, on doing the right thing with less compromise. So, for example, at The Ameswell, partially because we think it’s the right thing to do and partially also because we think that market demands it, we worked really hard to be really green, really sustainable, really health oriented.
H: What are your expectations on the return of business travel?
FM: I expect an approximate 20% reduction in business travel overall. And I say that because I really believe in the value of the importance of human connectivity. The face-to-face manner not over Wi-Fi… I’m optimistic we will get beyond this pandemic, and future pandemics.
I think that’s an optimistic view. Candidly, there are other people who are not invested in the hotel or travel space who will say, why shouldn’t half of our sales calls be over Zoom. People have figured out how to do it.
A 20% reduction to business hotels or meetings-oriented hotels is huge – that’s your profit. Right? So, what do you do to compensate for that? I think that the hotel business has to reduce the cost of sale, the conversion from gross to net revenue. I don’t hear anyone talking about that. They’re targeting their approach, fine tuning how they sell. But they are not addressing the cost of sale.
H: Surprises both good and bad as you persevered to open The Ameswell?
FM: I was pleasantly surprised that many elements we were focused on pre-COVID resonated even better after: filtered air, distinct air in guestrooms, filtered water, design that allows work-from-room.
H: How and where are you finding new happiness, meaning in work today?
FM: For me the greatest pleasure in the hotel business has always been building and motivating teams across the spectrum of business functions to work collaboratively to solve problems.
H: What are you working on right now with Lew Wolff?
FM: He is a partner in our recent purchase of the Sundance Mountain Resort from Robert Redford. Lew knew Bob from his days running real estate for 20th Century Fox…
I want to help turn the Sundance Mountain Resort in Utah into a deeply meaningful resort brand that lives the values that Robert Redford and his family created there: conservation, sustainability and a commitment to individual creativity through the arts (film, music, theater, crafts) and the natural environment that makes people better versions of themselves. Now that would be a meaningful new resort brand, huh?
How do we package that in a way into an experience, a creative experience, that can be replicated in places like the Hudson Valley in New York, where the experience and the meaning of the brand is about things that you do there that enhance creativity. It could be writing films, writing poetry, making pottery or jewelry, or any idea developed in a stimulating natural environment grounded in the idea of comfort and hospitality set in places that are genuinely inspiring… It’s probably better than an hour on the couch with a really great therapist. Just go make a great photograph, go write a great short story.
There’s skiing, hiking, mountain biking, fly fishing and all that stuff, which are fantastic because they divert the mind away from the mundane thing we normally do. But instead of doing all that stuff for the body, let’s do similar activities for the mind – not passive things like massage and facials, and all this wellness. Let’s do something where you’re really engaged and your mind is focused on producing something that is really ultimately very therapeutic and positive.
I’m really excited by the idea that Sundance is a very special place. But it is also really hard to develop this concept. So, I’m not making any promises, but we have a great group to improve and expand and optimize what is there in Utah. Then we will begin to export it to other places where we think it works.
H: You put a lot of emphasis on art in your hotels. Why so?
FM: I am an ‘art guy,’ having grown up with it, majoring in Art History in college, collecting, serving on boards of museums – so I am deeply biased. To me, a world without art just leaves us all at a lower level on Maslow’s hierarchy – it is humanity’s highest expression of creativity. But hotels have sadly mostly been left with what I call catalog art… We use art to function as the opposite – mind stimulating and, hopefully, inspiring, and bringing people together.
H: How are your previous experiences serving you right now?
FM: I guess accumulated patience is about the best I can refer to. Good things take a long time and life throws a lot of curveballs. So, it is about patience and acceptance of bigger forces at play, combined with a tenacity to never stop moving.
H: What are your biggest learns from COVID that have been actionable?
FM: Stay informed, stay flexible, think about guests as non-monolithic.
H: What innovations need to take place for the industry can come back stronger than ever?
FM: Cost of sale/distribution needs to come down. There are too many middlemen. Labor needs to be reimagined, not just more efficient/productive, but better work in better conditions, and tech needs to play a much bigger behind-the-scenes role.
H: What is the biggest opportunity right now?
FM: Making places really hyper local, which kind of contradicts the branding stuff. And by the way, just because I’m not a big fan of brands doesn’t mean I doubt their strength…
But to me, the biggest opportunity is sort of for small guys. I think the big opportunity now is for independent hoteliers to wake up and embrace innovation and technology, to embrace the creative elements, to become more hyper local – whether that’s urban or resort – to really focus on the experience… It is still sort of like the Rosewood approach, which you can count on it being really, really good. But you can’t count on it all being the same. That’s what you hope for.
H: What industry trends do you like, don’t like?
FM: While I am a big fan of revenue management, it lately seems to have crossed a line into how badly can we gouge the customer in a high demand situation. I think that is long-term dumb. One of the silver linings of this crisis is bringing people together with a shared sense of community – the lodging business has been pretty good on that.
H: What and who is inspiring you at the moment?
FM: Restaurateur Danny Meyer (a friend and high school classmate) is brave and original and a New York City restaurateur to require guests to be vaccinated for entry.
H: Will business revert back to “normal” or has COVID changed it forever?
FM: Zoom and its peers and future iterations has forever and finally changed the way people meet… But I believe in the absolute necessity of face-to-face interaction, so Zoom will take about 20% share of the traveling meetings business, give or take. That is a big change and will take the lodging business years to adjust to.
H: What is the biggest opportunity as a developer, owner right now?
FM: To creatively and somewhat accurately anticipate the post-COVID future where travel intersects with health, politics, technology, a changed labor environment and a hunger for interesting experiences. Same old, same old is a loser.
H: What is your message to the hotel world, your contemporaries?
FM: I am no preacher, but I would ask that as we all strive to do well for ourselves and our constituents (families, friends, partners, lenders, colleagues), we also apply increased consciousness to how our actions affect the broader community and world… We are all in this together.