Brian Quinn joined The Rivett Organization in May upon his appointment as chief development officer. Quinn brings over two decades of experience to the role; he previously served as chief development officer at Sonesta International Hotels. In his new position, Quinn is responsible for overseeing growth initiatives across The Rivett Organization’s affiliated companies, including My Place Hotels of America. In recent months, My Place has gained momentum with the opening of a new property in Jonesboro, Arkansas, and the signing of an agreement to develop 10 new My Place Hotels in the Midwest. In a recent interview with LODGING, Quinn and Ryan Rivett, president and chief executive officer of My Place Hotels of America, discussed Quinn’s addition to the leadership team and the company’s vision for its future.
LODGING: Brian, how does your background prepare you for this role with My Place Hotels and The Rivett Organization?
Quinn: The Rivett Organization is iconic. With My Place, the fact that it’s completely ready to be integrated—we have a construction company, we have a management company, and we have the brand—is an exciting opportunity. In extended-stay, right now, I think we’re in the first third of the game. It’s what the consumer wants. It’s providing the best flow-throughs across all the business models right now. So, to have a product that’s in that place, on top of that incredible legacy, it just creates a huge opportunity to grow.
LODGING: Ryan, what stood out to you most about Brian’s background in terms of scaling My Place and The Rivett Organization’s growth?
Rivett: I think the timing of joining forces with Brian is the most important element of what we’re doing right now. We spent the last 12-14 years building the infrastructure, stabilizing the model, and creating a product and a platform that we can actually deliver at scale. So, taking this scalable platform that we have, the vertical integration that we’ve been in for 50-plus years now, and then handing that over to a seasoned executive who can take it and incorporate it into what every developer is looking for, which is a programmatic model, I think that’s the best-case scenario and the outcome of this.
LODGING: The extended-stay segment is a very competitive section of the market. What are some ways that My Place Hotels can stand out?
Quinn: It is competitive, and there are other brands in the space. Everyone’s got a little different angle, but there were just two industry events where they did a deeper dive on extended stay, and the runway is incredible. Supply is up, which means of all the hotels getting built right now, the majority of them are extended-stay because the model is so attractive.
But when supply and demand are both up, it means that people are continuing to invest in this space, and more people are buying it. So, I think that’s just a great sort of platform in which to go to market. And then the strong commitment to the business model and operations is a big point of difference.
A lot of our competitors don’t manage hotels or build hotels. We are in those other spaces with our respective partners and franchisees. It makes us a better franchisor. And we have a fierce commitment to the business model. We are not going to overcomplicate this thing and screw up the closures. That’s why it’s so attractive. Everything goes through that lens, and that commitment is real, and the owners benefit.
LODGING: What are some of your top priorities as chief development officer?
Quinn: Really to communicate to a larger group of potential investors and prospective franchisees and tell them the story and let them understand the power of the business model. The other thing that’s unique about My Place and its journey right now is we have market availability. And those first movers, when we look back at other brands that have caught this kind of market dynamic, those first movers got approval. They were able to get into markets that everybody wants to get into, but they took the risk to go first, and they were rewarded for that. The other thing that Ryan and the team did that is so unique is, by having a little bit smaller floor plan for the box, you can get sites in the locations that are a little bit closer to the pit. … In those “A markets” where a lot of the hotels need 1.8 to 2.2 acres, we can get it done in 1.2, 1.4, super tight. That opens up a lot of markets and locations in those markets that increase your chance of success. We can get the hotel built on a better site because of that smaller floor plan.
LODGING: How would both of you define success in Brian’s first year in his new role with The Rivett Organization?
Rivett: We have a very well-established and robust infrastructure on the development side, on the operations side, and our franchise system is very bolstering. With all of that in place, and now with Brian, what I see success as organizing the team that we bring to the market that services the franchise development growth that we need. We’ve already onboarded a handful of people into the team, bringing them together into the playbook and laying the strategy out to hit the ground running. Beyond that, it’s actualizing deals. And the deals that we’ve been working on since Brian joined are going to continue to work and hopefully see some acceleration by having more service. We’re beefing up the franchise development team, which means more frequency of follow-throughs. It means more servicing to the development side when those franchisees are coming in. That should get the deals working faster and accelerate the process. But then beyond that, we’re going to launch Trend Hotels & Suites this year in a big way. Those two primary initiatives incorporate franchise development into the departmental structure as it should exist, rather than having been maybe a more founder-centric team of, “Let’s develop this brand from the initial stage up to that stabilization point.” We’ve reached and exceeded that stabilization point. Now it’s time to expand.
Quinn: I echo all that. What’s exciting for me is it’s a great model. I’ve had the gift of selling challenged brands before and very successful brands and everything in between. But having a prototypical box that outperforms the market, [one] that’s in the space that’s the most attractive to the consumer right now, is a fun product to take to market and sell.
I would hope that we see scaling in the franchise business, the management company, and ultimately the construction company. The other thing that we’ve picked up is that there’s some friction when we do a hotel deal, all the things that have to get done in order to get it done. And that risk on the front end is real. And there’s time, there’s money, all of that. We can take some of that friction out of the process by providing a complete vertical solution for somebody on a solid platform. We need to get out and tell that story to more people. Because I think people are going to like that. It’s going to make it easier for them to say yes.