When the pandemic forced a lockdown in March 2020—and business everywhere ground to a halt—Omni Hotels & Resorts took a sober look at the uncertainty that lay ahead…and started building.
“We continued to invest and open hotels,” says Dan Surette, Chief Sales Officer. “By the end of the year, I think we had half the portfolio back open.”
And with a staff addition of 15,000, trained and acclimated to the Omni culture, “our service and engagement scores from customers have never been higher,” Surette notes.
With the new staff came the new hotels, including the Omni Boston Hotel at the Seaport, opening across from the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center last September with more than 1,000 guest rooms, seven F&B choices, a luxury spa and 100,000 sf of flexible function space, including the largest hotel ballroom in Boston.
“We wanted the conventions, but we also wanted to be a destination for other in-house smaller groups, leisure travelers and business travelers,” Surette says.
Preceding the Omni Boston with a May 2023 debut was the 500-room Omni PGA Frisco Resort north of Dallas, billed as a $520M one-stop destination for leisure, golf, wellness, dining and meetings, with two championship golf courses, a PGA Coaching Center and short course for teambuilding, and 127,000 sf of indoor/outdoor meeting and event space.
“The PGA of America moved their headquarters next door, giving us another sports franchise,” Surette says, referencing the new Omni Viking Lakes Hotel (MN), with transportation to the U.S. Bank Stadium on Vikings game days; the Omni San Diego Hotel adjacent to PETCO Park, home of the Padres; and the Omni Hotel Atlanta at Centennial Park, next door to the Atlanta Braves HQ.
Last year also saw the April opening of the Omni Tempe Hotel at ASU, with 330 guest rooms and nearly 36,000 sf of flexible function space including the largest ballroom in Tempe.
The list of new properties on the horizon continues to grow along with major expansions at existing Omni hotels, including a $150M renovation at the Omni Homestead Resort in Hot Springs, VA, now featuring an event pavilion and 72,000 sf of updated meeting space; and the Omni Orlando Resort at Championsgate, where a golf entertainment complex is in the works.
“We’re going to spend another billion dollars over the next five years on new projects and renovations,” Surette notes, pointing to the Omni Fort Lauderdale at the Broward County Convention Center, due mid-2025 with 801 rooms and expansive meeting space.
“Meetings are part of our DNA,” Surette says. “We build with flexibility in mind, to meet planner needs.”
Major projects coming up also include the Omni Pontoque Resort at Punta De Mita, Mexico, due in 2026 with the biggest rooms in the brand at 550 sf; and in 2027, the Omni Raleigh Hotel, set across from the Raleigh Convention Center and offering 55,000 sf of meeting space.
Despite the recent influx of new and renovated properties, at its heart, Omni is a family-owned brand of 50 distinct hotels and resorts.
“We don’t have a hotel on every corner,” Surette says. “Our customers appreciate who we are and how we are. We’re all in for each other and the communities our hotels are in.”
Indeed, Omni’s internal and community assistance programs include Say Goodnight to Hunger, which donates a meal to local food banks for every stay. Since the program began in 2016, Omni has donated 25 million meals. —Lisa Simundson
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