Salt Hotels maps out next moves
Boutique operator Salt Hotels is to branch out into hotel management with the opening of a property in New Jersey.
The company, which already has three of its own properties on the US east coast, is staying in the US to manage its latest project, a hotel in the shore town of Asbury Park, but is also close to acquiring a UK property.
Chief executive David Bowd and partner Kevin O’Shea, the firm’s creative director, have been spending time in the UK to try and find their first property in the UK.
“We’ve probably got about 30% of our current hotel guests on Shelter Island and Provincetown coming from the UK,” Bowd said. “And being British I would like an excuse to come back here more.”
He said they had been looking in the Hertfordshire area, and also revealed the company is targeting expansion in California.
He added: “Going forward we’re looking also at the west coast of America too. We don't have anything right now but we’ve been very close a couple of times and we will get there.”
The Asbury in New Jersey is considerably larger than Bowd’s three existing Salt Hotels - which function as designer B&Bs - and will open in May featuring 110 guestrooms and six food and beverage outlets.
“I’m working with iSTAR, a real estate company out of New York, which owns several buildings and plots of land in Asbury Park and we are collectively rejuvenating the area - the first part of that will be this new hotel," Bowd said.
Given the new properties Bowd is working on will be different to those in his current Salt Hotels family, he stressed a new-style website launching in April would connect the two offerings.
“What we don’t want to do it confuse our guests,” he said.
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Place of registration: England and Wales.
Company number 08723341.
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