REMINGTON HOTELS

He had spent the previous seven years transforming the business practices of two nationwide healthcare operators , both having clinics spread across America . “ Now I have hotels . But it ’ s not that different - you have an individual unit somewhere in the US which needs to be able to operate by itself , but which needs to be connected to the mother ship .”

As CIO of both Remington Hotels and its associated investment and advisory Ashford group of companies , he is very close to the business objectives of both the management arm and the hotel owners . Most of these are real estate investment trusts ( REITs ), traded on the stock exchange , though Remington Hotels manages twelve independent as well as 78 branded hotels from its Dallas headquarters . Well known hotel brands like Marriott , Hilton ,

Sheraton do not typically own the properties in their portfolio , turning them over to REITs and using the revenue to expand . The management company , whose name may not be known to the guest it directly serves , delivers the service on behalf of the owner , corporate or private .

REITs are required to pay out 90 % of their net profit to their shareholders so the management company has to balance two driving objectives – to optimize revenues from the hotels and to maintain or increase the equity value of the properties . When Clent joined the senior management of Remington Hotels three years ago , he found a low cost , high revenue management company . “ The IT infrastructure was a matter of band aids , paper clips and rubber bands ,” he says with a chuckle . “ You don ’ t want to spend money when your objective is purely to raise the operating income for a hotel , so the focus is on revenue growth .”

However , the leadership of the company were aware that a transformation of this infrastructure could yield improvements in what is the lifeblood of the hotel industry ,

98 December 2017