Opryland calls to Hammons CEO

by Karen E. Culp

SBJ Staff

David B. Jones is leaving his position as president of John Q. Hammons Hotels May 15 to take a position as president and chief executive officer of Opryland Lodging Group, a division of Gaylord Entertainment Group.

Jones has been with Hammons Hotels since 1993, but has spent most of his working career in the hospitality industry. He will be working with Opryland Lodging to develop a series of hotels based on the Opryland Hotel in Nashville. The site for the first such hotel is in Florida, near Walt Disney World.

Since Jones joined Hammons, the company has worked to develop a strong management team and to acquire the appropriate number of full-service hotels, Jones said.

When Jones joined Hammons, the hospitality industry was recovering from a very slow period, he said. "In the late 1980s and the first part of the 1990s, the hospitality industry was very depressed. It almost came to a halt once the recession compounded that. Occupancies dropped; the banking industry was nowhere near offering finances for hospitality projects. Those were tough times for the industry," Jones said.

That left companies like the growing Hammons Hotels looking for ways to raise capital in 1993. The answer was to evaluate the public markets and look to Wall Street for cash, Jones said.

"We went out with a $300 million bond offering; we were one of the first to do so and it went over very well," Jones said.

The company went public in November 1994, made another bond offering and was able to start expanding into a number of markets, Jones said.

"We worked on a very planned, developed schedule. Planning is really Mr. (John Q.) Hammons' forte. He's a visionary; he is very good at figuring out where we should go when," Jones said.

One of the tenets of that plan was to stay in the full-service, high-end hotel and convention market, not venturing into the budget motels and hotels, Jones said.

"That is an area of our industry that is really becoming overbuilt. We felt we could make the most impact in the full-service facilities," Jones said.

As the company grew, it learned which markets worked best, and which ones didn't. Hammons Hotels sold six hotels in March.

"We didn't see as much growth in those markets. One of our strengths has also been the ability to reposition in key times," Jones said.

The company has opened 16 hotels in the past five years and is set to open 15 more in the next three years. The company owns and manages a total of 48 hotels, Jones said.

Jones said one of the highlights of the past few years was the construction of the Chateau on the Lake in Branson. The convention center and hotel, which will be open year-round in 1999, is Branson's first convention space, Jones said.

"Now they've got some convention space down there and a great place to showcase the natural resources of the area. We are getting calls booking conventions for several years out. It's going to be a very successful convention space," Jones said.

The Gaylord family is from Oklahoma City originally and owned the Opryland Park in Nashville, along with the Grand Old Opry and the Opryland Hotel. Opryland is now closed to make way for Opry Mills, a combination shopping center-amusement park, which will open in 2000.

Opryland Hotel is now 2,800 rooms and will be a kind of prototype for the hotels Jones will help develop. The new hotels will have only 1,400 rooms, Jones said.

"We determined that the number of rooms was too high at the Opryland Hotel and that 1,400 would be a good number. The Opryland Hotel is 20 years old and has never run at less than 84 percent occupancy. That's just unheard of in the industry," Jones said.

John Q. Hammons will fill Jones' position himself until the company finds a replacement, Jones said.

"I see nothing slowing this company down. In this industry, it stands out as one of the leaders. Hammons is known for its quality product. The company will continue to prosper," Jones said.

The new Gaylord venture has offered him a unique opportunity, he said.

INSET CAPTION:

'I see nothing slowing this company down. ... Hammons is known for its quality product.'

David Jones

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