Organization

With experience as a hotel Front Office Manager and General Manager, Corporate Director of Revenue Management Dawn Milhous engages with front desk associates to deliver training, coaching and support. Additionally, Dawn’s general knowledge of all systems allows her to trouble-shoot and analyze issues quickly and cost-effectively.

Corporate Director of Food & Beverage Tom Kovacs is at once a master chef and promoter. Tom evaluates chefs and food and beverage directors, writes and reviews menus and creates culinary programs for both restaurants and catering.

Cost-effective custom tools developed by CHG are utilized to assist managers in monitoring food and beverage costs and optimal inventory levels. Tools include recipe cost cards, menu engineering and meal period cost potentials, evaluating inventory levels with days-on-hand quantities and monthly monitoring of dead and slow-moving stock.

The culinary culture at Coastal Hotels is decidedly farm-to-table. Not only is this sustainability-first practice responsible, it resonates favorably within the communities we serve. The focus is on delivering a unique and special dining experience for locals, while creating interest and influencing hotel stays at premium rates. In fact, the culinary programs at our hotels are consistently among the most popular overnight packages. This requires recruiting talented culinarians and building them stages on which to perform. Success is measured in several ways – publicity, awards, covers, average check and ultimately profits.

Additionally at its corporate office, Coastal Hotel Group maintains a centralized accounting support group. On-site and external management teams are provided immediate, same-day reports and on-demand financial reporting including general ledger and accounts payable.

One of the most reliable predictors of long-term revenue growth is guest satisfaction. Coastal Hotels Acquisition and Retention Marketing (CHARM) is a highly successful sales, marketing and operations tool. CHARM is presented to and reinforced among all CHG associates, from general managers to hourly associates. Every associate understands his/her importance in acquiring and retaining each guest through exceptional service. Guest satisfaction surveys and online reviews are utilized to celebrate successes and identify opportunities for improvement.

Annual objectives and strategies are geared to achieve optimum financial targets. Effective execution draws upon eCommerce, direct marketing, public relations and direct sales, plus tactical advertising and promotion, together with associate training and development. Because CHG looks at marketing and sales as an investment rather than an expense, each initiative is thoughtfully developed with a projected ROI.

Schooled at Westin Hotels & Resorts, Senior Vice President Ed Schwitzky combines big brand discipline and tools with an entrepreneurial attitude. For boutique lodging properties, the result is a primary agenda of four cost-effective, proven key initiatives – website/eCommerce, online reputation management/social media, public relations and digital behavioral targeting. Meredith Mara, National Director of Sales, provides direction and support to on-site sales professionals in addition to conducting sales missions for the CHG portfolio. Together Ed and Meredith work to “protect selling time” for hotel sales associates by providing success-based systems and procedures as well as managing service provider relationships.

CHG is a Charter Partner of Stash Hotel Rewards®. This point-based loyalty program allows guests at nearly 200 participating independent hotels, resorts, inns and lodges throughout the United States to quickly earn free nights. Launched in May, 2010, the program continues to gain traction both in member growth and stay frequency. Most significantly, Stash for non-branded lodging properties to level the playing field.

Coastal partners with BuyEfficient™, the leading online complete hospitality purchasing solution offering best-in-industry supplier programs plus innovative purchasing technology and tools. A purchasing consortia of more than 1,200 member hotels representing over twenty-five leading hotel brands and top hotel management companies makes it possible for CHG properties to leverage significant savings. Additionally, the system permits Coastal’s accounting team to create checkbook controls to ensure adherence to monthly budgets by hotel department, including necessary adjustments as revenue and/or department goals change.

Coastal Hotel Group also partners with UniFocus, utilizing advanced software applications to perform daily revenue reporting, operational budgeting and forecasting and labor management. From a sophisticated suite of tools, hotel managers develop true zero-based budgets and forecasts by building line items with their respective fixed and variable cost components. Forecasts can be easily amended with multiple revenue and cost-driver data sets. Daily dashboards for each property are accessible by property and corporate leaders to monitor actual results against budget, forecasts and standards.

AccKnowledge™ software provided by M3 Accounting + Analytics, a market leader in hospitality accounting applications with over 3,000 properties online, links all hotels with CHG’s centralized accounting function. Property management system data is automatically imported into the daily reports, reducing the cost, time and inaccuracy of financial data intelligence.

CHG’s policy is to underwrite insurance coverage with carriers maintaining only Superior ratings by A.M. Best, the most widely used rating service. In conjunction with Coastal’s agent, Parker Smith & Feek, one of the 100 largest insurance brokerage firms in the county, CFO Peter LaFemina procures property casualty and workers compensation coverage on behalf of all managed hotels and administers risk management functions. This privately-owned firm is a licensed broker in all fifty states.

Another of Coastal Hotels’ several centralized programs is associate benefits administration. Utilizing a combined Human Resources Information System (HRIS) and payroll platform from Proliant, allows Director of Human Resources Patti Vadset to maintain a database of all CHG associates.

To facilitate CHG marketing initiatives, a network of established, experienced partners has been attentively assembled. Services comprise website development (GWebware), search engine optimization and marketing (Plaza Digital), content curation (Write On Marketing Communications), graphic design (rae-d8 design and No Status Quo Creative Shop), digital behavioral targeting (rocketfuel), photography (Ramon C Purcell Photography), data mining/management and eMail marketing (LMG data mining, A NAVIS Company), consumer intelligence (Newlio), media planning/buying (thrive, an advertising company), guest and meeting/event planner surveys (Guest Research), social media monitoring (Revinate), generational marketing (genergraphics®), data appending/list acquisition (AccuData), direct mail (Modern Postcard), printing (West Press), radio barter (Western Generational Media) and directory listings/content distribution (MMGY Global and VFM Leonardo). Ed Schwitzky, Senior Vice President Sales & Marketing, oversees these partnerships and works closely with hotel leadership teams to ensure seamless integration.

Public relations, both off-line and online, is critical to the success of independent boutique hotels. In particular, online publicity substantially influences website search rankings. CHG has a long-standing relationship with Seattle-based Richmond Public Relations. The public relations initiative is jointly managed by Ed Schwitzky and the hotel general manager.

To support direct sales at the property level, National Director of Sales Meredith Mara provides in-house teleprospecting, as well as a predictive performance assessment (Management Profiles) and training curriculum (Master Connection Associates).

Relationships with proven system providers including property management (SoftBrands Epitome and Maestro from Northwind™, website booking engine (Sabre Hospitality Solutions® Guest Connect and iHotelier®), sales and catering (Delphi® and hotel SalesPro®), revenue management (IdeaS™) and a centralized contact center (Travel Outlook®) are managed by Corporate Director of Revenue Management Dawn Milhous.

For any and all CHG marketing, sales and revenue management initiatives, the objective is to achieve the highest return at the lowest cost. The approach is simple: first identify industry best practices, scale for independent boutique properties, then execute across the portfolio. Net costs are passed through to the hotels with no mark-up.