Damon Lawrence has a concept and investment partners to create a hotel brand that he believes is long overdue in the marketplace: one that pays tribute to black culture.
Lawrence, founder of Oakland, California-based Homage Hospitality, doesn’t have any properties – he sold his proof of concept, a four-room property called The Moor, in New Orleans, about a year ago. What he does seem to have, though, is good timing: That sale happened before COVID struck, and later he fell out of a contract for another hotel that would have opened this summer, saving himself from overpaying.
“These market conditions are the best opportunity for Homage to grow,” said Lawrence, who previously worked in management for Ritz-Carlton, IHG and Dusit International.
“And if we can just be smart, creative, a little scrappy, and patient, we’ll be fine,” Lawrence said in our latest HotelsLife interview. “The culmination of not having anything in the market, also having a new awareness in the Black Lives Matter now being in the psyche of the American public and to the forefront, has really created this perfect storm for us to rise as a brand in the midst of it. So, I’m pretty excited for what potentially could happen.”
Read the interview with Lawrence and his thoughts on promoting black hoteliers here.