LODGING brings you the second installment of our three-part Ownership Series, providing owner perspectives on various hot topics and industry trends. For this installment, Amit Patel, managing partner for Rama Papermill Hotels, discusses his experience as a franchisor and his company’s conversion and renovation of the Extended Stay America Suites in Bristol, Virginia. The third article in this series, which will appear in the coming months, will detail more insights from the owner’s perspective.
Hoteliers with major branded hotels in their portfolios are not accustomed to getting hands-on service from the franchise companies they partner with. It’s for that reason that Amit Patel is bullish on Extended Stay America (ESA), not to mention the long-term stay segment in general, and is eyeing further growth with the company.
Patel—who is managing partner for Rama Papermill Hotels, a Knoxville, TN-based owner/operator with 16 hotels—in 2023 added two ESA properties to his portfolio and hasn’t looked back. He reflected on his positive experience with the Charlotte, NC-based franchisor.
“I like working with them very much. They work closely with individual owners and operators and they put in the time from all sides of it; basically from marketing to sales and direct billing,” he said.
Patel went on to provide some concrete examples of the franchisor’s day-to-day involvement.
“If we have a group coming their account sales manager will e-mail us personally and say, ‘hey, we have this group coming and let’s make sure we take care of them and the rooms need to be there. Everything needs to be taken care of.’ These are all details that they handle for us from a marketing standpoint and to help get the business there. Other big franchise companies don’t do those kinds of things,” he said.
Patel’s experience with the brand began with the conversion of a property in Bristol, Virginia, into a 120-room Extended Stay America Suites, which opened in August of 2023. Looking to capitalize on increasing demand for extended-stay options, as well as a dearth of these properties in the region, Patel approached ESA about converting the property from a transient hotels to an ESA.
He touted the company’s involvement throughout the redo and repositioning of the hotel.
“For the renovation, they came and visited us and helped from starting the conversion to the opening of the hotel. They would have weekly calls, do site visits and take care of all of those details to ease the conversion process,” he said.
Some of those details include a revamped lobby, guestrooms and newly painted exterior. The scaled down lobby was enhanced with new flooring, countertops and repainted ceilings and walls. Meanwhile, within the guestroom the company was able to gain space to add kitchens by effectively eliminating the closets.
Mark Williams, managing director, franchise development, ESA, noted of Patel, “he enhanced everything on the property.”
He further touted the renovation that took close to a year as a result of a good deal of trial and error around the layout of the guestrooms.
“We went from an exterior corridor, transient asset within the economy segment to a fresh property that attracts a different [extended-stay] clientele and the property is performing extremely well,” said Williams.
When it comes to performance, Patel pointed out that the impact of flying the ESA flag has been indisputable. He noted that since the hotel changed flags occupancy went from a little over 30 percent to roughly 75 percent. He also endorsed the brand’s efficient, low-cost model maintaining that operating expenses are “very low” for the hotels with minimal staffing, office hours and housekeeping.
Meanwhile, this past October Patel and his company assumed ownership of the 72-room Extended Stay America Suites in Knoxville, Tennessee. Since that time, the hotel has been running at better than 90 percent occupancy, according to Patel.
He emphasized the brand’s flexibility and personal involvement as being key to fostering a good relationship. For example, he noted when he initially bought the Knoxville property from corporate in an auction there was an issue with the sprinkler system he wanted to put in which could have potentially resulted in him “not getting the flag.”
However, after getting some feedback from the company on how they would want to have it done, Patel “presented it to them” and they were able to work it out.
“They came down and worked with us. We did the install of the sprinkler [system] and everything was good,” he noted.
His experience with the property has been so good that Patel has since signed a deal with ESA to construct another property in Knoxville and is currently in the process of securing the land.
Having gotten his start in hospitality in 2006 working with his father in Lebanon, Tennessee, Patel started Rama Papermill Hotels roughly a decade ago here in the U.S. In addition to the pair of ESA properties, the company’s portfolio consists of a number of economy and midscale brands.
In looking ahead Patel acknowledged the obvious upside of the extended-stay segment as well as the ESA brand, asserting, “I would love to grow with ESA.”
