Efrem Harkham's Hotel Management Company seeing a marked increase in inquiries as a result of the economic crisis
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Efrem Harkham's Hotel Management Company seeing a marked increase in inquiries as a result of the economic crisis
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Category: Worldwide - Industry economy -
Figures / Studies
This is a press release selected by our editorial committee and published online for free on 2009-03-12
**Banks And Asset Management Companies Desperately Seeking Assistance To Operate Foreclosed Hotel Properties**
When Efrem Harkham, CEO and Founder of Luxe Worldwide Hotels, created a hotel management division in mid-2008 (Hotel Control Management Group or HCM Group), he had no idea that he would be fielding so many inquiries in early 2009 from banks, asset management companies, and lawyers seeking management and operational assistance for hotels that had been repossessed.
Mr. Harkham's HCM Group had been working with select members of Luxe Worldwide Hotels and other properties with regard to hotel management and operations last year, and he now finds himself being called upon by those in the financial sector who desperately need the resources he has for hotel management, asset management, and other hotel-related consulting services.
"This is an unfortunate sign of the times," notes Mr. Harkham, a hotel owner himself who first entered the hospitality industry as a hobby in the late 1980s and then found himself unable to find a company to manage his hotel at a profit. Able to turn around his own underperforming hotel in less than a year (he now owns both the Luxe Hotel Sunset Boulevard and the Luxe Hotel Rodeo Drive), Mr. Harkham unwittingly found himself with the magic formula for hotel operations success and ended up forming Luxe Worldwide Hotels, a hotel representation company, which today has over 200 independent hotel members who seek Mr. Harkham's Midas Touch with regard to sales, marketing, revenue management, and distribution channels.
"Every day I am receiving calls from bankers, attorneys, and the like asking us to help them manage a foreclosed property until they can sell it when the economy turns around. These organizations are completely unfamiliar with managing a hotel and are now looking to us to help them run these properties."
As a result, Mr. Harkham has designated a hotel management task force from the HCM Group which will utilize the company's existing policies, procedures, and training manuals for hotel management, human resources, accounting, operations, sales and marketing, etc., to help banks and other entities with these newly acquired hotel assets. The task force operates under the direction of Lesley Carey, a hotel operations veteran, who is the VP of Hotel Management Services for the Hotel Control Management Group (HCM).
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