Omni Hotels President: Why We Still Own Hotels in an Asset-Light Era
CEOs at big hotel brands like to brag about how little they own. Omni is betting that ownership still gives it an edge in design, service, and loyalty.
While major hotel brands have pulled back from large-scale convention hotels in favor of asset-light growth, Omni Hotels & Resorts is doing the opposite. It's still building them and, in most cases, owning them.
The Dallas-based company plans to spend $1.5 billion on development and renovations over the next five years. But President Kurt Alexander framed that figure as part of a longer-term approach.
"We've averaged between $200 and $300 million a year over the last 10 years," Alexander told Skift, referring to renovations and new builds. "It speaks to our commitment to elevating our brand at every single touch point, both in terms of the existing properties, as well as adding new properties."
Omni remains one of the last large hotel companies committed to a vertically integrated model. It owns most of its roughly 50 properties and handles operations in-house. The company also employs more than 35 professionals on its internal design and construction team, focused on guest-facing details from room layouts to restaurant seating.
"We are the owner-operator brand, which is really the last player in that regard," Alexander said.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
CNET
an hour ago
- CNET
AT&T's $177 Million Settlement Will Pay Victims of Two Huge Data Breaches. Learn Who Qualifies
AT&T's settlement stems from two data breaches inn 2019 and 2024. AT&T/CNET Of the 1,350,835,988 notices sent to subjects of data breaches in 2024, almost a tenth of those came from a hack of AT&T servers in April, according to to the Identity Theft Resource Center's 2024 Annual Data Breach Report. The telecom giant now plans to settle a lawsuit for that breach and another in 2019 for a whopping $177 million. On Friday, June 20, US District Judge Ada Brown granted preliminary approval to the terms of a proposed settlement from AT&T that would resolve two lawsuits related to the data breaches. The current settlement would see AT&T pay $177 million to customers adversely affected by at least one of the two data breaches. The settlement will prioritize larger payments to customers who suffered damages that are "fairly traceable" to the data leaks. It will also provide bigger payments to those impacted by the larger of the two leaks, which began in 2019. While the company is working towards a settlement, it has continued to deny that it was "responsible for these criminal acts." For all the details about we have about the settlement right now, keep reading, and for more info about other recent settlements, find out how to claim Apple's Siri privacy settlement and see if you're eligible for 23andMe's privacy breach settlement. What happened with these AT&T data breaches? AT&T first confirmed the two data breaches last year, announcing an investigation into the first in March before confirming it in May, followed by confirmation of the second one in July. The first of the confirmed breaches began in 2019. The company revealed that around 7.6 million current and 65.4 million former account holders had their data exposed to hackers, including names, Social Security numbers and dates of birth. The company first began investigating the situation last year after it reported that customer data had appeared on the dark web. The second breach began in April of 2024, when a hacker broke into AT&T cloud storage provider Snowflake and accessed 2022 call and text records for almost all of the company's US customers, around 109 million in all. The company stressed that no names were attached to the stolen data, and two individuals were arrested in connection with the breach. Both of these incidents sparked a wave of class action lawsuits alleging corporate neglect on the part of AT&T in failing to sufficiently protect its customers. How will I know if I'm eligible for the AT&T data breach settlement? As of now, we know that the settlement will pay out to any current or former AT&T customer whose data was accessed in one of these data breaches, with higher payments reserved for those who can provide documented proof that they suffered damages directly resulting from their data being stolen. If you're eligible, you should receive a notice about it, either by email or by a physical letter in the mail, sometime in the coming months. The company expects that the claims process will begin on Aug. 4, 2025. How much will the AT&T data breach payments be? You'll have to "reasonably" prove damages caused by these data breaches to be eligible for the highest and most prioritized payouts. For the 2019 breach, those claimants can receive up to $5,000. For the Snowflake breach, the max payout will be $2,500. It's not clear at this time how the company might be handling customers who've been affected by both breaches. AT&T will focus on making those payments first, and whatever's left of the $177 million settlement total will be disbursed to anyone whose data was accessed, even without proof of damages. Since these payouts depend on how many people get the higher amounts first, we can't say definitively how much they will be. When could I get paid from the AT&T data breach settlement? AT&T expects that payments will start to go out sometime in early 2026. Exact dates aren't available right now. The recent court order approving the settlement lists a notification schedule of Aug. 4 to Oct. 17, 2025. The deadline for submitting a claim is currently set at Nov. 18, 2025. The final approval of the settlement needs to be given at a Dec. 3, 2025 court hearing in order for payments to begin. Stay tuned to this piece in the coming months to get all the new details as they emerge, and for more money help, check out CNET's daily tariff price impact tracker.
New York Post
2 hours ago
- New York Post
These are the Top 3 worst-rated food chain restaurants in the US
It got slaughtered. KFC was named the worst-rated food chain in the country, according to crypto exchange site ChicksX, which analyzed 7.3 million TripAdvisor reviews of 244 restaurant brands. The Louisville-based fried-chicken giant, which has 4,095 locations in the US, had an average customer review score of 2.89 out of 5, landing it dead last in the pecking order. Advertisement 'It was one of the few disappointments of my New York holiday,' TripAdvisor user Francesco N said in his review of KFC's Midtown location in Penn Plaza, which has since closed. 3 KFC took the crown as the worst-rated food chain in the country. SINSU1980 – 3 McDonald's landed in the second worst spot. FOTO_STOCKER – Advertisement Second to last was McDonald's. It's average score of 2.99 made it clear that many customers of its 14,300 US locations in America aren't lovin' it. 'The food was so nasty. It was dry. They took too long to take my order … some of the machines aren't even working,' lamented Zahara J. who reviewed the McDonald's on Broadway in the Theater District. 3 Burger King took the third worst title. agencies – You may not have it your way at Burger King either — as the Home of the Whopper was the third from the bottom, with an average score of 3 at its 6,678 locations in the country. Advertisement 'It took 15 minutes before we received our order and the burgers were all covered with ketchup. Don't waste your money here,' warned Jonas S. of the Burger King on Broadway in Midtown. Rounding out the Worst 10 was Church's Texas Chicken, Long John Silver's, Taco Bueno, Taco Bell, Hardee's, Wendy's and Pizza Hut. The top rated on the list was Andy's Frozen Custard, which is based in Missouri and has 85 locations in 14 states. Advertisement Great Harvest Bread Company, a franchise headquartered in Montana that has around 150 locations in the country, came in second best. The Melting Pot, a fondue restaurant chain with close to 100 locations, including two in New Jersey locations, landed in third. In New York, the Mediterranean-inspired chain Cava ranked the highest, with an average score of 4.55 out of 5. In order to qualify for the list, the eatery must have had at least 150 reviews on the travel site.
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Is META Stock a Buy, Sell, or Hold as Meta Platforms Launches New v-JEPA 2 AI Model?
As the artificial intelligence (AI) race accelerates toward advanced machine intelligence (AMI), tech giants are pushing boundaries to create agents that can reason more like humans. A key piece of this puzzle is physical reasoning, essential for AI systems to navigate and act within the real world. Meta Platforms (META) has stepped into this frontier with the launch earlier in June of its Meta Video Joint Embedding Predictive Architecture 2 (V-JEPA 2), a powerful video-based world model that helps machines anticipate how the physical world behaves. Unlike language-only models, V-JEPA 2 learns from video data to predict object dynamics and human interactions using latent-space simulation. It allows robots to 'think before they act,' performing tasks like picking up and placing objects in unfamiliar environments. Ditch Big Tech and Buy These 3 Popular Stocks in 2025 Instead Dear Nvidia Stock Fans, Watch This Event Today Closely Can Broadcom Stock Hit $400 in 2025? Tired of missing midday reversals? The FREE Barchart Brief newsletter keeps you in the know. Sign up now! Meta's bold move also includes new benchmarks to accelerate physical reasoning research, plus, a reported $14.3 billion investment in Scale AI, signaling CEO Mark Zuckerberg's intent to anchor AI deeply into Meta's ecosystem. But does this push into physical AI make META stock a buy, or should investors wait on the sidelines? Meta Platforms (META) has grown from a college social network into a global tech powerhouse, redefining how billions of people communicate. The California-based tech titan now oversees a sprawling digital empire, anchored by social media giants such as Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger, and is charging ahead into the future with ambitious bets in AI, augmented reality, and the metaverse. What began with a newsfeed has evolved into a full-scale push to shape how humans and machines interact in the next era of connectivity. That future-facing focus seems to be paying off. Meta's shares have surged more than 700% over the past decade. In 2025, META has so far delivered a standout 21% YTD gain, and over the past year, the stock has skyrocketed 38.8%, handily beating not just some of its tech peers, which flinched under pressure, but also the S&P 500 Index's ($SPX) returns. The surge was fueled by rising ad revenues, deeper AI integration, and investor faith in its metaverse roadmap. Meta's Q1 2025 earnings report, released on April 30, came out swinging, crushing expectations and fueling a 4.2% jump in the stock the very next day. Revenue climbed 16% year over year to $42.3 billion, beating Wall Street's estimate of $41.4 billion. But the real knockout punch came from EPS, soaring 37% to $6.43, 23.2% higher than forecasts. Meta's ad engine is still humming, with impressions up 5% and the average price per ad jumping 10%. User growth remains rock solid too, as, in March, daily active users across the company's app family reached 3.4 billion, up 6% year-over-year. Meta tightened the screws on costs and it paid off. Its operating income surged 27% to $17.56 billion, lifting margins to 41%. Plus, with $70.2 billion in cash and marketable securities and just $28.8 billion in long-term debt, Meta heads deeper into 2025 with a strong balance sheet and momentum on its side. CEO Mark Zuckerberg highlighted AI as the driving force behind the company's renewed energy, particularly Meta AI and its growing line of smart glasses. Meta AI has already hit nearly 1 billion monthly users. But the real story may be what's next. Looking ahead, management anticipates Q2 revenue to be between $42.5 billion and $45.5 billion, signaling continued strength. Plus, with capex now projected to be between $64 billion and $72 billion for 2025, Meta is going full throttle into AI infrastructure and next-gen computing. Analysts monitoring the social media company project its revenue for Q2 to be around $44.5 billion, and EPS for the quarter is anticipated to rise by 11.4% year over year to $5.75. Looking further ahead to fiscal 2025, the bottom line is expected to climb to $25.25 per share, up 5.8% annually. AI-driven robotics and autonomous systems are reshaping industries - from logistics to consumer tech - with speed and adaptability becoming the new gold standard. Meta's V-JEPA 2 steps into this evolving space as a potentially disruptive force. What truly elevates V-JEPA 2, however, is Meta's decision to open-source the framework. By releasing code, benchmarks, and training data, Meta is fostering a collaborative ecosystem, one that could fuel innovation far beyond its own walls. Yet this openness is a double-edged sword. It lowers barriers for startups but also gives its competitors access to refine their systems faster. For Meta, the model is a strategic leap, but long-term success depends on how well it is integrated, scaled, and monetized. Meta's ambition to dominate AI just got Wall Street's nod. Recently, Bank of America hiked its price target to $765, citing easing macroeconomic worries and expanding valuations. Buzz around Meta's roughly $14.3 billion Scale AI investment only adds fuel, signaling Zuckerberg's intent is to lead the AI race, not follow. Wall Street has got its foot on the gas for Meta. The stock holds a 'Strong Buy' consensus, signaling full-speed-ahead confidence in its trajectory. Of the 54 analysts offering recommendations, 45 are giving it a solid 'Strong Buy,' three advise a 'Moderate Buy,' four suggest a 'Hold,' and only two advocate a 'Strong Sell.' META's average analyst price target of $711,88 implies modest 2.4% potential upside. However, the Street-high price target of $935 suggests that the stock can still rally as much as 32% from here. On the date of publication, Sristi Suman Jayaswal did not have (either directly or indirectly) positions in any of the securities mentioned in this article. All information and data in this article is solely for informational purposes. This article was originally published on Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
