Trump man goes down-market in hotel push
ERIC Danziger wears a pin on his suit lapel that sends a subtle message to the US Secret Service: He’s a Trump man.
The 10- sided bauble lets Danziger bypass security inside Trump Tower, a privilege granted to perhaps a dozen people.
Danziger, it’s safe to say, is no longer an ordinary executive. As head of the Trump hotel business, he occupies one of the most exclusive perches in corporate America. And one of the oddest.
Since Donald Trump entered the White House, Danziger has worked to expand the first family’s hotel business, while rebutting suggestions that he, along with the president’s sons Donald Jr. and Eric are, in effect, trying to monetise the US presidency.
Danziger, 63, scoffs at the suggestion. “There is zero conflict,” he says. “Zero.”
It’s been a remarkable run for Danziger, who passed through Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide and Wyndham Worldwide before joining the Trump Organisation 22 months ago, when a Trump victory seemed like a long shot.
Questions about how the Trump Organisation is navigating conflicts, real or perceived, aren’t going away. Last week, Danziger unveiled his latest effort to take the goldplated Trump brand downmarket with a chain that projects an all-American image.
The plan: To open hotels under the name American Idea in, of all places, Mississippi, one of the poorest states in the nation.
“He’s got a crazy hard job now with a lot of opportunities
He’s got a crazy hard job now with a lot of opportunities because of the high profile of Trump, but a lot of challenges too.
because of the high profile of Trump, but a lot of challenges too,” said David Loeb, founder of Dirigo Consulting LLC and a veteran lodging analyst.
Foreign investors are now taboo.
Trump Hotels in April cut ties with a partner who touted his plans for a Scion hotel in Dallas to be financed by investors in Turkey, Qatar, and Kazakhstan. Scion is Trump’s new four- star chain.
Danziger says, half-jokingly, that with his silver beard people tell him he resembles the debonair Dos Equis beer pitchman, “The Most Interesting Man in the World,” originally portrayed by actor Jonathan Goldsmith.
He certainly has an interesting job. He is a Trump insider who in some ways will always be an outsider, because he isn’t family. Inside Trump Tower he is known as Ed, rather than Eric. Another Eric – one with the Trump name – works there too, after all.
“I’m not a politician,” Danziger says. “I’m a lowly little hotel guy, and all I do is run hotels.”
In contrast to the privileged upbringing of his Trump-brother bosses, whom he calls “mentors” even though one is three decades younger, Danziger started as a bellman at age 17 at a Fairmont hotel.
“I did this,” he says, “half
David Loeb, founder of Dirigo Consulting LLC
because I had no interest in college and half because my parents couldn’t afford it.”
Danziger joined Trump Hotels in August 2015, two months after then- candidate Trump alienated chefs Jose Andres and Geoffrey Zakarian – and millions of voters – with his anti-Mexican campaign comments, causing the chefs to bolt from planned restaurants at Trump’s luxury Washington hotel.
If Danziger is stressed out, he doesn’t show it, except for the black vape pen he turns on before being interviewed. He comes across as amiable and unpretentious. “What’s up, dude?” he says to an acquaintance who stops to say hello at a conference. For years, he smoked three packs a day. His smile today reveals perfect white teeth.
The Hotels post- election Trump is relying on other people’s money to proliferate its two new chains throughout the country – the same strategy used these days by most big hotel operators, which are focusing on franchise and management revenue and letting others take the development risk. — WPBloomberg