A hotel investment company with a marketing plan to increase diversity: Travel Weekly

“Interesting question,” said Laurence Pinckney, president of ZenBiz Travel, as we stood outside a restaurant in New York City earlier this week. “The answer is yes.’ And maybe.'”

The question was, “As a black travel consultant, would you refer customers to black-owned travel providers?”

Laurence Pinckney

He clarified, “It’s important to promote diversity. And I think promoting black-owned businesses is very important. So if it’s high-end and resonates with my customers, I’ll promote it.

“But, for example, someone told me about a hotel in Cape Town that was black-owned at the time, and he thought it was an amazing five-star hotel. I looked at it and I Didn’t like it. So the fact that it’s black owned and five star didn’t trump what I thought was best for my customers.”

We’re at the end of National Black Business Month, and I asked Pinckney because I had just spoken with a black business owner who buys hotels because he believes in part that black travelers who want stay black Owned properties represent an underutilized opportunity.

That business owner is William Huston, co-founder and chief investment officer of Bay Street Capital Holdings, based in Palo Alto, California. After overlaying two data points — that black consumers spend $109 billion on domestic travel, but only 532 of 91,000 hotels in the United States are black-owned — he saw an opportunity for market segmentation.

Applying his belief that many black travelers would prefer to stay at a black-owned property if that were an option, he decided that rather than affiliate with a well-known hotel company, he would create his own brand, Resthaven.

“A lot of black owners go for hard brands. But it’s not immediately clear who owns the hotel if the name is Hyatt, is it?” He asked.

William Huston

After reading that black travelers spend $20 billion overseas on top of domestic spending, he sent two of his employees who were real estate agents (one with a degree in hotel management) to search for properties in the states. United and overseas, and they have so far found four – one each in Venice, Calif.; Lake Tahoe, California; Zihuatanejo, Mexico; and Sangre, Portugal — which Bay Street has purchased or is in the process of purchasing.

In the online version of last week’s luxury travel cover story, Travel Hub 365’s Stephen Scott pointed to the paucity of black imagery in vendor promotional materials as a barrier to selling to black travellers.

Huston examines the assumption underlying Scott’s observation—that travelers want to identify with marketing materials—and applies it broadly. It is not its intention to fill its hotels only with black travelers; its digital-first marketing strategy uses social media and influencers to pursue diverse market segments and deliver messages tailored to a variety of demographics.

“By using cookies, we already know a lot about someone looking for, for example, ‘places to stay in Portugal’. If a black person types this, we’ll show them an image of a black person on our property. in Portugal If it is a golfer we will highlight that it is next to a golf course If it is a surfer we will show that it is next to a golf course “a beach. Some hotel investors are approaching the added value by repainting and refinancing the property and taking advantage of the appreciation in value. The value we add is knowing how to properly segment audiences.”

Another element of the strategy is to acquire trophy properties in prime locations. He’s not looking for bargains. “The property in Venice is a five-minute walk from the beach; it has been used by HBO for location shoots before. The one in Mexico City is beautiful; we bought it while it was still under construction, but we immediately felt like we had to have it. The one in Lake Tahoe is in a great location, and it may have a membership component and a co-working space. The one in Portugal is close to golf and the beach .

Which brings us back to Pinckney and his desire to support black-owned businesses, but only if they align with his customer base. Huston is clearly as focused on product delivery as it is market segmentation.

Do travel advisors have a place in Huston’s plans?

“Not yet. But we are open to it,” he said.