HOTEL SOLUTION: GO FANCY

September 13, 2012 | 8:00 am ET Staff Reporter

As William Wallace once said, "You can take our freedom, but you can never take our pillow chocolates!" Even amidst poor stats for the sector, Richfield Hospitality’s newest hotel veteran, Allen Kramme, sees a steady demand for luxury.

Allen, who just joined the company and will handle day-to-day operations of its 30-hotel portfolio, says “While transient demand has returned, ADR growth has not been at the levels needed.” He also says RevPAR is still soft with short-term booking trends. “We are anxious for a meetings recovery, which will not take place until sometime in 2013.” (Assuming there is a 2013. The Mayans didn't respond by press time.)

Richfield has been focused on repositioning its portfolio to attract an upper scale clientele, Allen tells us. And that means there’s been some big renovationsat its various hotels, including The CP Syracuse (above), the Doubletree Bloomington (which renovated all 600 guest rooms, taking the “property from a stodgy big box hotel to a contemporary business destination”), the Foule Dallas, which doubled its meeting space, and the Crowne Plaza Pittsburgh Airport, which is being rebranded as a Sheraton. “We have other changes in the works in Melbourne, Fla., Orlando, Monroeville, and Miami.”