How did that evolve into creating a hotel management and representation company?
As an owner, I felt misrepresented by the different representation companies and franchises that were offering their services to us. I tried many of them and realized that there was a major void out there for a company that cared, offered personal attention and realized what our needs were. I believed there was room for one more serious player. So we ventured out and purchased existing GDS representation and sales and marketing companies — three of them — which we converged. In a period of a year or so, we dropped the different names and GDS codes and created Luxe Worldwide Hotels. Originally we had 450 hotels in the portfolio, and my goal was to manicure that to a number of hotels that were more in line with each other. There were only 200 in the group that fit our concept and core value. We selected those hotels that were in important locations, that were creative, that had an individual in style and that offered authentic care for their guests. We deleted close to 300 hotels withi
