A centennial is a remarkable milestone for a company in any sector, including hotel development and management. While many of its competitors have been in operation for decades, Tampa, Florida-based McKibbon Hospitality’s roots can be traced back to 1926, when entrepreneurs John, Sr. (Jack) and Marvin McKibbon opened a small Piggly Wiggly franchise in Gainesville, Georgia. But for McKibbon Hospitality, the anniversary signifies an extraordinary evolution—not merely staying power. The company’s growth has been highlighted by bold and strategic moves into new lines of business, beginning in 1946 with Jack Jr.’s “first foray into the hospitality world,” J.B. McKibbon IV, president of McKibbon Equities, told LODGING. “My grandfather opened the Avion Restaurant in Gainesville, bought some houses on that property, and added a motel component to the restaurant.”
In subsequent decades, McKibbon Hospitality evolved by succeeding in Holiday Inn, Marriott, and Hilton franchising; launching a third-party management service; moving into the lifestyle hospitality space; and expanding its portfolio through acquisitions, among other turning points. “Another unique milestone was opening our 100th managed hotel—the Courtyard by Marriott in Gainesville, Georgia—two years ago,” said Hassen. “It’s adjacent to our Gainesville corporate office and just blocks away from the Piggly Wiggly grocery store, which came full circle for us.”
To commemorate its centennial, the company is highlighting its achievements and those of its staff internally throughout the year, culminating in a planned celebration at the McKibbon One Leadership Conference, scheduled for Nashville, Tennessee, in November. “For 100 years, our associates have been at the heart of the communities we serve. We’re excited to celebrate this incredible milestone alongside our hotel leaders, brand and vendor partners, owners, and friends who have helped make it all possible at our conference,” said McKibbon.
Many of McKibbon Hospitality’s associates have built long-term careers at the company, and their longevity is paralleled by dozens of corporate leaders. Among the company’s ingredients for success is a strong focus on retention and talent development, an approach that has cultivated a sense of belonging among the team of over 3,200. While that headcount “doesn’t make us look like a family business, at the end of the day, that’s really how we view ourselves,” observed Bruce Baerwalde, president of McKibbon Hospitality.
Entry Into Development
McKibbon Hospitality has the distinction of being one of the earliest Holiday Inn franchisees, operating hotels throughout Georgia in the 1960s. McKibbon related how the relationship with the brand came about: “Jack set his sights on developing Holiday Inn properties. So, he sold the Avion Restaurant and Motel and reinvested the capital into his first Holiday Inn in Gainesville. From there, he went on to develop several more Holiday Inns throughout Georgia—an approach that fueled the company’s growth and established its presence in the hospitality industry.”
With John McKibbon III assuming leadership in the early 1990s, the company began to see a “major change from a small-scale owner/operator to where we are today,” said McKibbon. John’s first project was a Days Inn in Athens, Georgia, which turned out to be a high performer and was eventually converted into a Courtyard by Marriott. “It was extremely successful, and Marriott actually asked my dad [John] to be a developer for them in the Southeast,” he related. “At the time, we were a small family-run business with a few hotels, and to have a group as big as Marriott come in and say they wanted us to be a developer for us he thought was crazy. From there, we just had this massive growth run of developing Courtyards, Residence Inns, and TownePlace Suites all throughout the Southeast and eventually started a relationship with Hilton and developed many Hampton Inns and Homewood Suites with McKibbon Places, our development entity based in Alpharetta, Georgia. So, from the early ‘90s through the early 2000s, the company went through this transformational growth wave that really scaled up our organization.” John’s final development project as head of the company, the Kimpton Hotel Arras in Asheville, North Carolina, was completed in 2019—Kimpton’s first franchised hotel.
In addition to being an early Holiday Inn franchisee, McKibbon Hospitality has been “on the leading edge of many significant brands in their development,” noted CEO Randy Hassen. For example, as a Marriott franchisee, the company developed four of the first TownePlace Suites and was an early adopter for Aloft, AC Hotels, and Moxy Hotels, becoming one of the first to receive the Marriott Partnership Circle Award in 1995—the highest recognition the brand’s owners and operators can earn. “We are here not only to benefit from the brands but to also support and give back to them as well,” Baerwalde added. “We’ve always had a presence on Hilton and Marriott advisory boards, and several of our corporate team members are involved in AHLA advisory committees as well.”
Third-Party Operation
Leveraging its success in development, McKibbon Hospitality began offering its management services on a contractual basis in early 2000. “We pushed into third-party operations when we needed to raise capital to continue developing more products,” said Hassen. “So, we strategically packaged some of our developed hotels and sold them to other ownership groups, and in many cases, to partners who preferred not to operate the hotels themselves.”
As a third-party hotel operator, taking a hands-on approach to revenue management has been one of the company’s differentiators. “We were very early adopters of bringing revenue management in-house,” noted Lynn Prater, executive vice president of revenue generation, whose team makes up over 60 percent of the corporate staff. “The only option early on was to hire the brands to do revenue management, and we felt like the nuances of each market were very ‘streetcorner driven’ and a lot of times weren’t following the brand’s guidance for pricing. We felt we could have better control of results by knowing the markets as intimately as we did, and ultimately brought on our own revenue management team.
“McKibbon Hospitality was also one of the first third‑party operators to adopt a cluster‑selling approach, by having one team represent all the hotels in a market, even if they were different brands. This way, we weren’t selling against one another in the market; we were selling together,” said Prater. “Our revenue generation team followed suit, organizing portfolios in a way that supports a collaborative strategy.”
Protecting Margins
Hotel operators continue to face rising costs in areas such as labor, insurance, and energy, and McKibbon Hospitality prides itself on a cost-conscious approach that maximizes returns for owners. “It’s become more difficult to protect margins in today’s environment than it’s ever been,” observed Baerwalde. “We’ve always been a company that’s operated as lean as we can, and we look very closely at how we spend, comparing ourselves not just against competitors, but internally—and having scale helps us do that. We always say, if you are holding or growing market share and protecting margins, then you’re doing your job well, and there are a number of different ways to do that.”
In addition to cost control, increasing top-line revenue also protects margins, with food and beverage as vital revenue generators for the company. “We’ve built a food and beverage team that can not only support branded operations but independent operations as well,” said Hassen. “We have 12 independent restaurant concepts, and every one of them is attached to a hotel project. It takes a different caliber of expertise to bring these food and beverage concepts to life—one that goes beyond hotel operations to encompass branding, menu development, cost control, and a deep understanding of the day-to-day realities of a restaurateur.” Baerwalde added, “One of our continued visions for future projects is having excellent food and beverage experiences, because we believe that brings not just value to the project and the development, but is also a differentiator for the guest’s stay.”
Building Owner Relationships
Maintaining open dialogue with owners and making operational recommendations backed by data builds a level of trust that is essential to success as a third-party manager. “You have to build relationships strong enough to withstand challenging times. It’s about creating alignment, trust, and resilience from the outset,” said Baerwalde. “That trust, faith, and confidence have to exist long before that happens, and so communication is important. … And at ownership conferences, we make the time, even if it’s just 30 minutes, to be able to catch up and understand what’s happening with our owners—not just about business, but what’s happening in their families. We want to have real relationships with people, and that’s not just good business relationships.”
In addition to relationship building, helping an owner’s hotel realize its full potential speaks volumes. “If we do a really good job of turning around a property and increasing the value for the owners and improving profitability, the hotel’s value multiplies, and they can go to market at a much higher sales price,” Hassen noted. “We managed a few properties that sold last year ahead of their anticipated plans because of the results that were delivered on the assets and offers received from interested buyers.”
McKibbon Hospitality’s extensive ownership experience informs the management of their client properties. The focus on optimizing asset value is reflected in the appointment of Senior Asset Manager James Merrihew to monitor and assess the performance of its owned hotels. The overall approach, as McKibbon described it, is fiscal conservatism that includes minimizing debt. “We’re driven by that fiscal conservatism to protect the assets that we do have financially—always making sure that we’re well reserved and capitalized for each of our properties,” he said. “This has helped us weather these shocks in the hospitality industry, which is very cyclical. It feels like we’ve had more than our fair share over the last few decades—9/11, the Great Financial Crisis, COVID. But normally, every eight to 10 years, there’s going to be some sort of demand shock or supply shock. So ultimately, you need to put your acorns away for a rainy day.”
Tending to the Team
Human capital is at the core of hotel performance, and like all other hoteliers in the industry during the COVID-19 pandemic, McKibbon Hospitality was forced to drastically reduce its staff. “We went from just under 3,000 employees to 500 employees in five days,” Baerwalde recalled. “We’re now over 3,200, and the company’s overall revenue has come back stronger from every downturn. We surpassed the high watermark that was set in 2019 after we recovered from COVID.”
But even during that financial hardship, McKibbon Hospitality did not waver in supporting the well-being of the team members it was able to retain. “For us, it’s how do we care for our associates and show them in a tangible way. We have resources and programs that help them, especially during tough times and when they suffer losses or personal challenges,” said Hassen. “We have nondenominational chaplains that are available in all markets to help guide and provide comfort to them and their families. It’s a benefit we’ve never cut back on, even during 9/11 and COVID. We also have an Associate Assistance Program that helps them with financial resources whenever they have hardships, in addition to robust benefits packages.”
Another major driver for both attraction and retention are the career development opportunities the company offers. “We’ve always taken great care of our associates and pride ourselves in that, so if somebody wants to grow their career in hospitality, we provide them opportunities to do so,” said Baerwalde. “We want to create an environment where they’re challenged to be the best version of themselves.” The career paths of many team members exemplify those opportunities, including regional directors of sales and marketing who moved up from roles as sales coordinators and senior vice presidents and regional vice presidents who were formerly general managers—even Baerwalde himself rose from general manager of a single property to where he is today over 30 years. Prater and Hassen have a similar longevity. “The older we are as an organization and the more we scale, the more important it is that we have people who have been with us for a long time to be able to perpetuate the culture that we know is very important,” said McKibbon.
The Road Ahead
Going forward, the company’s development pipeline has plenty of highlights, including a dual-branded, high-rise AC Hotel and Moxy in Tampa’s Water Street and Channel District that features a destination-class rooftop restaurant. However, the current development environment is “extremely challenging—costs have really limited the number of markets where high-quality product just pencils and can provide a return that investors will support,” McKibbon said. “We’re not likely to see a massive growth wave, but we’re continuing to find good deals and acquisition opportunities.”
While growth on both the development and third-party management sides of the business remains important, McKibbon Hospitality’s 100-year history is a testament to the value of continual evolution—not merely scaling but exploring new lines of business. “Hospitality has been great to us for many, many years, but you can never get stuck in your ways,” said McKibbon. “You always have to be looking for the latest and greatest thing, and certainly we’ll continue to do that from the ‘family office’ perspective.”
McKibbon Hospitality’s culture still reflects the combination of ambition, integrity, and familial unity that its multigenerational leadership have exemplified ever since that Piggly Wiggly franchise opened in Gainesville in 1926. “We’re now in our fourth generation and have the same values that we had as a smaller operator,” Baerwalde maintained. “Although we are in business to win, we believe winning isn’t just about the dollars. We really do look at a balanced scorecard. We want to make sure that when we all wake up in the morning, we look forward to going to the office.”