Boutique Design - June 2015 - 22

HEROES AND
BRAD WILSON

MAVERICKS
Boutique Design's first Up-and-Coming Hotelier winners Brad Wilson, Josh Wyatt
and Enrique "Kike" Sarasola have reordered the hotel industry's hierarchy with
off-the-grid concepts travelers-and locals-love.

JOSH W YATT

ENRIQUE "KIKE" SARASOLA

boutiquedesign.com JUNE 2015

WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT that a handful of
hostels, a half-dozen insider haunts and a quirky
collection of pied-à-terre hotels named for the
fictional characters who supposedly call them
home could stand toe-to-toe with billion-dollar
brands in getting travelers' attention and change
the industry's landscape in the process?
Mavericks Josh Wyatt, senior advisor, Patron
Capital, and chief strategic officer for Generator
hostels; Brad Wilson, president of Ace Hotel Group
and co-partner of Atelier Ace (the company's
in-house creative services agency); and Enrique
"Kike" Sarasola, president and founder, Room Mate
Hotels and BeMate.com were years ahead of the pack
in foreseeing that next generation travelers would
want hotel options unlike anything on the market.
Not only did they outpace the giants and the
icons in recognizing that hospitality spaces would
have to be more social, more connected to the
locale via insider design and contributions from
hot young artists and writers, and more fun, they
also knew their prospective guests well enough to
understand that an authentic (not just the look but
the involvement of locals), one-of-a-kind experience would trump any frequency points program in
building loyalty to their brands. They envisioned a
world in which "vibe," not system size, would be the
linchpin of market reach and capture.
It took some heroic measures to get buy-in for
opportunities that now seem obvious. Sarasola had

the toughest fight finding backers. "I got a lot of no's
before I got a yes. It was the hardest part of making
Room Mate a reality," he says. Wyatt, newly hired as
Patron Capital's senior advisor of hotels and leisure in
2005, was clearly in the right place to get funding but
knew that pitching the acquisition of a brother-andsister owned hostel company would be an uphill
battle. "It took great courage and conviction for
Patron Capital [and later Invesco] to support the
vision for Generator," he says. Although Wilson had
the advantage of learning the ropes from Barry Sternlicht when the Starwood Capital Group chairman
and ceo was rolling out W Hotels, he had has own
challenges later as a ceo trying to build visibility for
The James hotels (subsequently acquired by Denihan
Hospitality Group) and, since joining Ace Hotel
Group in 2011, proving that this brand is not just a
collection of cool-kid hangouts, but a player and a
stayer. "We keep being told that what we want to do
is impossible. We're doing it anyway," says Wilson.
That combination of insight and daring is why
these small hotel portfolios are top of mind for travelers worldwide. It's also the reason Boutique Design
honored this trio of innovators as its first-ever
Up-and-Coming Hoteliers. The awards were
presented earlier this spring at BDwest in San Diego.
These three visionaries share their thoughts on
the up- and downsides of being pioneers in their
profiles on the following pages. For more, visit
boutiquedesign.com.

C O U R T E S Y O F AC E H O T E L G R O U P ( W I L S O N ) ; C O U R T E S Y O F G E N E R AT O R ( W YAT T ) ;
C O U R T E S Y O F R O O M M AT E H O T E L S ( S A R A S O L A ) .

BY MARY SCOVIAK

http://www.BeMate.com http://www.boutiquedesign.com http://www.boutiquedesign.com

Boutique Design - June 2015

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