First Look: eSuites - High-Tech For the Lifestyle Set

by Staff -- Hotels, 8/1/2007

Taking a niche approach to hotel development, the new eSuites hotel brand fuses lifestyle design and amenities with high-tech infrastructure and services. Geared toward tech-savvy business travelers from pre-dominantly Gen X and Gen Y, eSuites touts its state-of-the-art fitness center, loft-style guestrooms and hip bar/lounge scene as much as it does its high-tech offerings. Those offerings include everything from 11 fully equipped conference rooms per hotel and full-service business center to pod-style check-in kiosks, T1-speed wired and wireless Inter-net, and even access to customers’ own cable television network via the Web. “Our emphasis is on the new generation of travelers for whom this tech-oriented lifestyle is the norm,” says Sam Winterbot-tom, long-time industry veteran who is now heading up eSuites as president and CEO. “We’re doing all new builds so there are no legacy systems to contend with, no technology baggage.”

In May the Tampa, Florida-based company completed a US$127 million financing to build its first four hotels in Tampa and Jackson-ville, Florida; Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina; and Phoenix. All the hotels, which are targeted to open in September 2008, will be made of concrete construction—for maximum soundproofing—and average about 220 suites in three size configurations. The hotels also will fea-ture “spaSuites,” complete with in-room hot-tubs, and “sportsSuites,” which will include in-room fitness equipment. Upmarket F&B offer-ings will focus on artisan and organic products as well as microbrews. Rates will average US$140 to US$160.

Going forward the company will target markets that have no fewer than 5,000 rooms within the immediate area, with the new hotel ac-counting for approximately 4% of the room count. Winterbottom says the goal is to have four to eight more hotels in the pipeline by the end of the year. All will be owned and operated by eSuites because of the tech-heavy emphasis, Winterbottom explains, saying that at this stage it makes more sense to own the hotels so that the company can best ensure the concepts will evolve as technology evolves. The company is looking at the top 25 to 30 U.S. markets for predominantly suburban, airport and business park locations.