May 2, 2019
SHL students give hotel recommendations to ECU executives
Students in SHL’s Hospitality Financial Management class recently presented their projects on the proposed ECU Hotel, which is to be located on Reade Street between Third and Fourth streets. ECU owns the land and earlier this year, sent out a Request for Information to prospective business partners (hotel developers and management companies) that might be interested in partnering with ECU for this project.
The students broke out into eight groups, and each group proceeded to conduct research and make recommendations on the development of a hotel for this site. The charge to the students was to create a hotel concept, create a plan of action and parameters to develop a lodging property, i.e., a preliminary feasibility study. Student projects have resulted in similar hotel feasibility work with multiple municipalities and private businesses in Washington, Edenton, Belhaven, Duplin County, New Bern and others.
Students presented projects that addressed concept, brand, area review, rooms types, cost of furniture, amenity packages and layout of the hotel. Students also estimated the cost of the hotel given their brand and concept recommendations including a parking structure.
Project deliverables included competitive analysis, estimation of growth rates for room night demand and growth of demand through the first five years of the recommended hotels operation. Students also presented analyses of demand generators, market mix of demand, unsatisfied demand, induced or latent demand, identification of target markets and segments, and a penetration analysis for the new hotel, which included a fair share of supply and demand and forecast market occupancy and forecast new hotel occupancy. Additionally, an analysis of average daily rate and an estimate of operating results for a representative year were included. Each group also made a final recommendation on the project. Final recommendations included, Aloft, Hyatt Place, Tru by Hilton, the Autograph Collection by Marriott and several independent recommendations.
The clients, ECU executive council members and others, included Sara Thorndike, vice chancellor for administration and finance; Chris Dyba, vice chancellor for advancement, Vice Chancellor and Provost Ron Mitchelson; Kevin Carraway, director materials management and real estate; and Merrill Flood, director of local community affairs, ECU Division of Research, Economic Development and Engagement.
