USA: Doug Artusio, the CEO of Dellisart Hospitality, has launched the Extended Stay Lodging Association.
The Extended Stay Lodging Association (ESLA) is a trade association dedicated to advancing the extended-stay lodging industry by providing an impartial forum for stakeholders to share ideas, innovations and best practices. The group was launched at the Hunter Hotel Investment Conference.
Artusio made it clear that the group has been launched solely for educational purposes and that memberships in various categories for stakeholders will be available. He said: “The extended-stay segment is a unique niche within the hospitality industry with different keys to success in all traditional areas from development, sales and marketing as well as operations. ESLA will be the place for extended-stay owners and other stakeholders in this segment to share strategies, innovations, and technical tools.”
ESLA plans to provide developers, owners, lenders and other stakeholders with a combination of educational webinars and opportunities. These are on topics such as historical market and industry data on extended-stay industry performance, the importance of proper due diligence for market selection, pre-opening planning, listing of franchised extended-stay brands for members further investigation and educating members on general extended-stay demand generators, types of businesses to pursue, measuring profitability and ways to find these purpose-driven clients.
Doug Artusio is the chairman and CEO of ESLA while the board directors include Simon Mendy, divisional president at select service, Aimbridge Hospitality; Matt McElhare, senior director at extended stay brands, Choice Hotels International; Carl Hren, senior vice president development at Concord Hospitality; Glenn Bisbing, director franchise services at Extended Stay America; Kimberly Rowell, executive vice president at Five Star Hospitality & Development Group; Rick Colling, brand leader at Homewood Suites by Hilton; Mark Skinner, partner at the Highland Group; Scott Stephens, senior principal and COO at HREC; Matt Hostetler, chief development officer at Red Roof and Phil Hugh, the head of lifestyle and lodging development at Sonesta International Hotels Corp.
