ATLANTA-Hospitality veteran Brown Kessler has come out of retirement to join forces with Hunter Realty. Brown joins the Atlanta office as an executive vice president of the hotel investment advisory services firm. Brown will be involved in brokerage, hotel buyer-seller relations, selling and acquisition strategies, brand negotiations, and real estate consulting.
“Everybody in the hospitality industry loves Brown,” Teague Hunter tells GlobeSt.com. “He’s got a proven track record with more than 30 years of experience and he’s already made a mark on the hotel real estate industry. He’ll be a great asset to us as the market recovers.”
Kessler was vice president of franchise development for InterContinental Hotel Group, where he was responsible for overseeing the development of six of the company's brands in the US, Canada and the Caribbean, including Holiday Inn, Crowne Plaza, Hotel Indigo, Holiday Inn Express, Staybridge Suites, and Candlewood Suites.
“This is a great time to be in the hotel buy and sell market,” Kessler tells GlobeSt.com. “There are going to be tremendous deals made on both sides of the equation in the next few years and it’s exciting to be in the middle of that. I’m going to leverage my connections in the industry to get deals done.”
Kessler began his career working with a franchisee who developed more than 20 properties before joining Days Inn three years later. During his tenure there, he was senior vice president of operations for the Atlanta region, overseeing some 60 properties, before returning to franchise development. In his career he has been involved in the franchising of more than 4,000 hotels.
“People need advice right now,” Hunter says. “Banks and lenders need help. A lot of owners are in tricky situations. Ironically, there are a lot of guys with money that want to buy. We need all the advisors on our team we can get to prepare for 2011 and 2012. The future is bright in the hospitality industry and Brown knows the hospitality industry.”
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