Standard International CEO Amar Lalvani is not sitting idly by waiting for COVID-19 to magically disappear so he can fully reopen his portfolio of Standard and Bunkhouse hotels in the U.S., Mexico, London and the Maldives.
His group, backed by Bangkok-based investor Sansiri PLC, has revamped its website, refreshed protocols and SOPs, is preparing to launch a chat application perfect for the socially distant environment and, oh by the way, last week it launched a new brand, Peri, which is positioned as humble and simple, capitalizing on outdoor spaces.
“It’s shocking how much you can accomplish and also how efficient you can be when you cut out all the commuting,” said Lalvani, who pre-COVID was continually hopscotching continents for even one-day meetings. “What you lose in those in-person meetings, you make up with the forced communication, trust and efficiency.”
Perhaps even more intriguing is Lalvani’s new notion that it is time for more independent hotels to unite. Because he has strong backing from well-capitalized Sansiri, he has the ability to think boldly, and participating in the consolidation of the independent space is top of mind.
“There are too many independent ‘brands,’ and without scale, they’re in a significantly weakened and risky position,” Lalvani told HOTELS from his New York City home, where he has mostly been hunkered down since March. “If you have five hotels, one hotel or 10 hotels, you can’t really weather a storm like this if you don’t have a deeper capital base. How do you afford the infrastructure that you need to keep a great brand?”
The answer, Lalvani said, is strength in numbers. “I think we’re stronger together, and we would be on the consolidator end of that. We should put together some more brands within our collection that can benefit from the capital base, the infrastructure, the expertise and talent that we have. And I think people will wake up to that when they realize they’ve shut down, are trying to reopen and have laid off a lot of people. How do I come back to great without keeping the systemic risk that I had in being so small. That’s a big wake-up call for the independents in the industry.”
Lalvani said the state of the independent hotel business is “a little off-kilter because the demand and desire for great boutique and independent hotels has never been larger.” But the problem is their ability to compete in the market has never been worse. “The structure is not conducive to them excelling right now,” he added.
With Sansiri’s financial wherewithal watch this space. They have done this before. “One of the great things about them is they’ve lived through significant crises in Asia,” Lalvani continued. “When the Asian crisis happened in 1998, they not only moved quickly but they capitalized on the opportunity. They built themselves stronger coming out of a crisis than they were before the crisis.”
Sansiri Chairman Apichart Chutrakul assured Lalvani that Standard International will get to the other side of the COVID moment. First, it needed to make hard decisions quickly about closing and unfortunate layoffs that led Lalvani to more soul searching about how he and the company can better support its team.
The Peri story
The big news coming out of Standard International is the launch of the Peri Hotel brand with two Sansiri-owned properties in Hua Hin and Khao Yai, Thailand, being converted and set to open in October 2020. Lalvani sees the initial potential for the brand to reach 20 hotels in the region over three to five years. He said it is a great conversion brand for lifestyle hotels in Asia that need more distribution and backend support to survive and thrive.
The idea for new growth was hatched before COVID, when the Standard team recognized that Asian independent hotels with style needed distribution and professional management, and that it could help with a soft brand offering. However, it wasn’t long before the crisis and its game-changing characteristics emerged, which led Standard to morph the opportunity into a hard, 4-star lifestyle brand where it would take third-party management.
Peri leads with simplicity and humility as its ethos and focuses on creating open spaces, many outdoors, to provide comfort in the current social environment. The environment in which it was created informs the identity of the brand.
For example, the Peri Hotel Hua Hin draws in guests with pre-loved wooden floorboards that were once part of fishermen’s boats. The mood is inspired by Ernest Hemingway’s novel “The Old Man and the Sea,” and guests come together at a modern take on a traditional mess hall, Chow Lay (meaning fishermen in Thai), serving freshly caught seafood and homestyle cooked congee with fresh crab. Kite-surfing and seaside horseback riding are among activities offered.
The restaurant at Peri Hotel Khao Yai is set within the surrounding wilderness giving guests the experience of eating at a campground. Diners are invited to pick their own vegetables at the hotel’s organic farm. Guests can cycle or hike through the trails of a national park or visit and make offerings to monks at neighboring forest temples.
Lalvani said the brand was born out of the team’s intuition for what would work. “If we really love it for a certain soulful reason, we think that other people will, as well,” he said.
What Lalvani has really enjoyed, including making good out of a bad situation, is this return back to basics mentality.
“There’s a simplicity about the offering, there’s a humility about the F&B, a simplicity to the design… But it’s not a marketing thing – it’s just the happenstance that we created this brand at a certain moment in time,” he said. “And it’s also a moment in time where you have to be cognizant of the economics of renovations (materials and furniture are simple; conversion costs are modest) and the fact that guests don’t have an enormous amount of disposable income or maybe don’t want to show that they do because there’s a humility about how people are living today. There’s a recognition that nature is very important, that outdoor space is very important and being appreciated more and more. There’s a recognition that drive-to destinations make a lot of sense.”
Holding up
What Peri will not focus on right now is that vibrant, buzzy lobby experience, but Lalvani believes that will come back – maybe as early as next spring. A staple of the Standard brand’s energy, the lobby social scene is moving outdoors at Peri and Standard hotels right now with rooftops and outdoor cafes. “We’re still staying true to our principles, it’s just where we’re locating the energy has modified a bit,” he added.
Looking further afield, even past next spring, Lalvani expects sanitation protocols to become more permanent and guests will become more respectful of other people’s space.
“But I think ultimately people want to commune, people want to come together. We’re probably seeing it too fast in some areas, but you know the spirit to want to do that is not going away,” he said.
The two areas of revenue generation that will lag, according to Lalvani, are bigger events and night life. “Those things I think are naturally going to take a long time because it’ll feel a little irresponsible, a little scary for a while,” he said.
Overall, Lalvani said Standard International is holding up well. The Standard East Village in New York City was surprisingly the first to reopen and the London property is also open. The Standard Highline in New York and the Miami property are due to reopen next week. The three that are lagging by a month or two are two hotels in Los Angeles and one in the Maldives. Its Bunkhouse portfolio is fully functional with the exception of its San Antonio, Texas, hotel. It is also preparing the launch the Magdalena in Austin next month.
What is also helping Lalvani get through the crisis is a return to meditation, Peloton workouts in his apartment and yoga every other day.
“I’m reading and listening to music a lot more, which keeps me sort of sane in this environment… And, of course, taking care of my kids, spending more time with them for not being on the road. Those elements have kind of been more holistic, normal and tangible, and I think have been very positive outcomes of this.”