R for reward as new hotel defies the doubters
IN the accommodation game, it pays to mix business with leisure.
Geelong’s R Hotel, which opened in March sans its Ritz moniker courtesy of a trademark spat with the owners of the Paris Ritz, is fast making ground in both spheres.
R Hotel general manager Bruce McAleer said in the two months after opening leisure guests had been the largest customer base, although confidence in the corporate sector was rising.
Some might think there could not be a worse time to open a hotel, but Mr McAleer said while it opened from a zero base, the business was building.
The hotel is geared to all types of guests, with family, dual key and separate singleroom apartments that all have a balcony view over the eastern gardens, the waterfront or CBD.
“Being a new business and in the middle of a pandemic, and there are other factors at play, it reduces our pool of people to some extent,” Mr McAleer said.
“There are not that many hotels opening anywhere in the world, so it’s a bit unique in that sense.”
The hotel opened to a full house in March and from the start it was all about leisure guests with people coming from Melbourne or other regional centres.
The school holidays were busy and the hotel played host to all the ACT competitors at the recent under-18 basketball championships held in Werribee.
But COVID-19 still loomed, and the recent outbreak in Sydney caused a number of guests to cancel trips to Geelong, Mr McAleer said.
He said confidence was building in the corporate sector and the pandemic had a silver lining for the industry.
“The pandemic has probably exposed more people to Geelong in the past six months than there ever had,” Mr McAleer said
“People who potentially wouldn’t consider coming here — we’re only one hour, two hours from home and during March and April the town was absolutely humming down here.
“With 128 rooms, we’ve got critical mass and every single apartment in the building is in the hotel pool.
“We’ve got a very strong position.”
He said the hotel also tapped into the food precinct in Bellerine Street, with charge-back arrangements at venues such as Eastern Spice and Malt Shovel Taphouse.
The Ritz name was to be a homage to the Ritz Flats, the name that was as faded as the original building’s facade through decades of neglect before the developers proposed the hotel.