Corporate
ProfileAFCO Realty has been active in the real estate community for over 30 years. Its hospitality division, AFCO Lodges, LLC, was formed in 1996, and it develops, owns and operates limited service extended stay hotels for its own account and third parties in the Southeastern United States. AFCO's professional staff has been active in the hotel industry for over twenty-five years and incorporates management and investor experience with many national hotel brands, most recently Suburban Extended Stay Hotels.
AFCO Lodges, LLC has developed several Suburban Hotels extended-stay hotels as a franchisor for Suburban Franchise Systems. It presently owns and manages several hotel properties throughout the southeast for itself and others. Click here for a list of these properties.
Although AFCO Lodges is significantly involved with the Suburban Extended Stay Hotel Franchise, the AFCO Lodges team has a wealth of experience with other hotel franchises (click here to view AFCO's hotel chain experience) and is actively pursuing development ventures in other sectors of the hotel industry.
When managing for its clients, AFCO Lodges provides each hotel with the same level of attention and care that is own hotels receive. For our investors and management clients, we seek to preserve the hotel assets and to maximize the long-term return on investment, while minimizing the risks associated with the business.
AFCO Lodges engenders a service attitude at all levels of the organization that acknowledges we are in business for several reasons: (1) to serve the hotel guests' needs to the best of our ability, (2) to employ our people in productive work with competitive compensation, and (3) to contribute to the communities in which we operate both economically and through civic involvement.
Management are provided with a large amount of responsibility and authority within well defined guidelines. The company operates in a "no blame" environment which engenders open communication with general managers. With this approach, problems and issues are handled quicker and generally with better solutions.
Competing in Today's Environment
When Suburban Lodge launched its franchise expansion program more than ten years ago, there was little competition, the economy was booming and the the hotels were new and fresh. Now, by contrast, competition is rampant, the economy is in its second year of severe recession, and our hotels have some age. The old adage, "build it and they will come" worked in the beginning, but no longer applies. The economic environment in which we operate has evolved and so must we to remain competitive.
Limited service hotels and Suburban Extended Stay Hotels, in particular, are lean and efficient by design. Our analysis shows a very high percentage of the hotel expenses are fixed, or near fixed and true savings are hard to extract. Therefore, the performance of the extended stay hotel is largely impacted by enhance revenue. Based on this premise, AFCO Lodges invests much of its management time and resources into sales and marketing activities which translates into higher revenue.
AFCO Lodges is organized by functional discipline including (1) Sales and Marketing, (2) Management Services, incorporating property maintenance, and (3) Accounting and Finance. These functions are distributed between small, experienced staff at the corporate offices in Atlanta, a mobile regional staff and the majority of the staff working directly in the hotels. AFCO Lodges is a very "hands on" organization, with management traveling frequently to ensure quality standards are met. General hotel managers are told they are "profit centers" and take responsibility for the operation of their respective hotels. Corporate and regional staff are in place to support the general managers and their delivery of services to the guests.