Apollo Hospitality Group: The Tools to Use
Hospitality Solutions
Written by Meghan Flynn   
Sunday, 01 March 2009
Apollo Hospitality Group: The Tools to Use
With innovative technology and services, this construction and design firm can take the sting out of renovations.
Premier Business Partners:

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Renovations are Aaron Plantè’s expertise: he founded Plantès Hotel Renovation (PHR) more than 15 years ago with the aim to bring convenience and speed to hotel renovation. Plantè and his team discovered they were often taking much more than project management, and thus Apollo Hospitality Group was born. Under Apollo, Plantè’s team helps owners handle purchasing and design, and PHR is the construction division.

Apollo Hospitality Group: The Tools to Use
Aaron Plantè, CEO
“We give our clients the complete package, and if an issue arises, there is no finger pointing: one phone call, and the issue is resolved,” said Plantè, CEO. He said business more than doubled when he created the Apollo parent company more five years ago.

The convenience Apollo can offer clients is only improved by the speed at which the company delivers a finished product. Plantè said his team prides itself on the knowledge only experience can bring, saying they know exactly what it takes to renovate a hotel.

To add to that speed, the company launched a new purchasing and logistics program called Innplement. The program features five pre-designed guest rooms and four bathrooms in three different color schemes each: two designs were based on successful projects for major hotel brands, and three were customized designs for two-, three-, and four-star guest rooms.

“In my experience, owners want to know two things: how much a project is going to cost and how long it will take. With Innplement, we know the cost at the outset, and we guarantee the job will be done in eight weeks,” said Plantè, who added that owners can swap out specific features from one design with those from another, or add custom features, though those are not part of the eight-week guarantee.

As part of Innplement, the company built full-scale models of each design at a showroom in California, giving clients a great  visual of what the finished project depicted online will look like to a guest.

Apollo Hospitality Group: The Tools to Use
Allison Sansone, director of marketing and PR
Apollo will be launching another innovative feature this year: a proprietary, Web-based project tracking system called SPOTS (Sales and Purchasing Order Tracking System). SPOTS will track every aspect of a project: purchase orders, items received, and it generates daily reports from superintendents. All of that information will be accessible to the client online. SPOTS also uses e-mail alerts to notify involved parties if something slips through the cracks.

“It always seems like something slips through the cracks, and it’s impossible to avoid human error,” Plantè said. “This way, thecomputer tracks all the little things for you.”

SPOTS has been under development for the last year and a half. Plantè said the company is slowly starting to use it for new projects but won’t open it up to customers until sometime this fall.

Spreading the word
Unfortunately for Apollo, Innplement came on the market in August, mere weeks before the collapse of the economy. Plantè said the firm was in a strong financial position when the market fell apart and that there are lots of his clients looking to take advantage of the slowdown to update the look of their hotels.

Allison Sansone, marketing and PR director for Apollo, said while most of Apollo’s business comes from previous customers or referrals, she plans to ramp up a branding campaign for Innplement and Apollo as a whole.

“Last summer, we launched a broad campaign that highlighted the new product and sort of introduced Apollo as PHR’s parent company to the industry,” she explained.

The main selling point for Apollo is the convenience it can offer with a full line of services, including general contracting through PHR, which is only amplified by the speed of Innplement. Today, she is running a simplified campaign: time is money, and Apollo can save owners both.

The first step was designing an all-new Web site for Apollo, which linked to a separate site for Innplement. For the first time, the company is advertising in print, using mostly testimonials to showcase its long history of satisfied customers. Another first is Sansone’s conference travels, including ALIS, NYU, MLIS, and The Lodging Conference last year where Plantè was a panelist and described how renovation fits into general asset management. Last fall, the company showcased the Innplement designs in a 20X20 booth at IHMRS, and it plans to do the same at the AAHOA and Choice shows this spring.

Plantè said that because the company was in such a strong position before the recession, he doesn’t have to be too concerned for the near future. “Although the number of multi-million-dollar projects may be declining, there are still lots of projects in the $800,000 range to be had,” he said, adding that as the market reorganizes, he expects more opportunities to bring the company into new regions. Apollo already has a presence in Florida, but he said the company will open a satellite office there soon.

“The package we offer clients gives them a much less painful renovation experience, increasing the overall value of their property while saving them time and money. With Innplement, we create more flexibility for everyone, and by continuing to develop innovative and effective services, we’re going to come out on top,” concluded Plantè.
 
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