Located on the shores of the Lough Ramor, the hotel is a converted 18th century, 100-acre estate owned by the Marquis of Headfort from 1750 to 1939. The property has extensive gardens and offers a quiet retreat for both leisure and corporate travelers. The hotel can accommodate meetings of up to 80 people.
The assignment was handed Marshall Management by owner Baltimore International College, an institution offering culinary and hotel management degrees. Marshall Management operates two other properties for the college. Marshall Management president Mike Marshall tells GlobeSt.com the property is used to train hotel management students and culinary students, and the college never really focused on making money. Marshall says his company's charge is to teach the existing staff how to operate a hotel correctly by instituting standards and policies and procedures.
"Our initial goal is to reposition the property to attract a wider patronage," says Marshall. "We will blend the best of American and European marketing programs. Our goal is to attract mid-week training clientele and expand our tour and wedding business on the weekends. We also will work more closely with the local community to highlight the hotel's outstanding food and beverage program."
Marshall says his company acquired the assignment from BIC based on its performance at the college's other two properties. "We took over the Mount Vernon Hotel, located in Baltimore, in July 2003 and improved revenue per available room by 67 percent in six months," he says. "All of the properties we managed in 2003 performed well, despite the difficult economy."
Having added six new contracts in 2003 while losing several others due to property sales, Marshall Management now manages 21 hotel properties. The company derives its income from management fees plus a percentage of profits over a certain threshold. In 2004, Marshall says his company expects to add between five and 10 new contracts in 2004 and already has the infrastructure in place to comfortably handle this level of growth.
Specifically, he says the company is looking for full-service and limited-service properties in urban, suburban and resort settings, both in the US and in the UK, where there are a lot of one-off hotels and only a couple of management companies interested in small- to mid-sized hotels. "Because of real estate run up there, a lot of hotels were purchased for investment purposes but are not working our they way the investors thought they would ," says Marshall. "We've been doing this since 1980 and have a good grasp of what works and what doesn't."
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