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An Avid Hotel that opened Thursday near Quail Springs Mall is the first in a new line of mid-tier hotels by Intercontinental Hotel Group.
A new hotel chain opened its inaugural business Thursday in Oklahoma City.
An Avid Hotel near Quail Springs Mall is the first in a new line of mid-tier hotels by Intercontinental Hotel Group. The hotel — and future Avid hotels — is designed for guests seeking a one- or two-night stay with a better version of the basic hotel amenities without the frills or costs of the higher level and extended-term stay options.
The Oklahoma City Avid hotel is locally owned by Champion Hotels and is at 2700 NW 138. It is the first Avid hotel to be completed, with plans for more to be constructed internationally in the near future.
Intercontinental owns several chains of hotels, including the Holiday Inn and Holiday Inn Express lines and Staybridge Suites and Candlewood Suites. Avid is expected to serve travelers seeking options somewhere in the middle.
“We were not operating in the middle, so we launched Avid Hotels,” Intercontinental’s Americas region CEO Elie Maalouf said. “The fundamental idea is to deliver the basics exceptionally well.”
Those basics include higher-quality mattresses, better food and coffee in the included breakfast for guests and modern designs in the lobby and rooms.
Costs are saved by shrinking the room size and reducing in-room amenities. Providing better coffee in the lobby meant removing individual coffee makers in rooms, for example.
“For us, it was one of those deals of being built around being cost effective and exceptional,” Champion Hotels Vice President Harshil Patel said.
The hotel has 87 rooms with a base rate of about $94 per night. Patel predicts the hotel will see between $1 million and $1.8 million in annual revenue. The hotel employs 22 full-time and part-time employees.
The smaller hotel size is part of a trend in the hotel industry, according to Patel.
“Land’s getting harder to find and more expensive to buy,” Patel said. “The trend is starting to get where they go to smaller sizes.”
Hotels in general are facing competition from online rental services such as AirBnB.com and VRBO.com. This competition has triggered a reaction from hoteliers to provide better service in an effort to adapt, Patel said.
“Whoever comes in the door, you service the heck out of them,” he said.
Oklahoma City has seen many new hotels across the city over the years, through the development of downtown, Bricktown and other areas of the city. But hotels don’t operate in a citywide market, Patel said, and opening along the Kilpatrick Turnpike corridor is a distinct market from other areas.
Because of these smaller submarkets, a second Avid Hotel is planned to open near SW 15 and Meridian Avenue in what Patel describes as “the airport corridor.” It is scheduled for completion in six to seven months.