Saud Bin Aqeel

Saud Bin Aqeel
saudfa9@gmail.com
310- 3240 Jacklin Rd
Victoria British Columbia v9c3t6
Canada

Mr. Cornell is the owner of the property (land) of the Comfort Inn Suites, Victoria and he decided to position himself as the general manager 10 years ago.  He started in a business career at an owned car dealership in Victoria and other locations in the island for almost more than 30 years. Then he was bought the land that on Blanshard Street because he thought that would be good location for a car dealership as he used to own the property of Toyota now, but he changed his mind due to the difficulties in this business. The main reason of him changing the idea of developing a car dealership is because his dad was a businessman in the hotel industry and he supported him commissioned three visibility studies of what he should do with this land. The best viability study was to develop a hotel that runs by a popular chain hotel. He chose a mid-level hotel because of his vast experience with selling cars. The expensive cars (Luxury) would stay on the lot for more than 2 months before they were sold, but the regular (such as Chevrolet) cars would be sold very quickly. The real profit lay there. In his mind he wants to sell rooms as quickly as he can, and the guests will like that mid-line price because it's an affordable price. It has proved a very successful and profitable business model. At 80-some years old he could afford to own a private jet but simply says it’s not practical (Personal Communication with Mr. Cornell, 2016).
The history of the Comfort Inn & Suites started almost thirty years ago when the property was about to be a car dealership. In 1986 the owner (Mr. Cornell) decided to make it a hotel and the Ramada Chain was seeking an opportunity to have a hotel in Victoria. During these years the owner built a restaurant called ‘Redd’s’ and a Liquor store called ‘Rosie’s’. If you have realized that both restaurant and liquor store begin with letter R because of Ramada hotel. These add-on businesses have helped sustain the appeal and business sustainability of this long lasting business. This phase of development lasted 25 years and was only moderately successful.
In 1991 the Holiday Inn took over the premises, which included two buildings of hotel rooms. During these years the Holiday Inn group asked the owner to rebuild the hotel facilities to resemble the Holiday Inn appearance and branding. After consideration he declined even though the facilities were aging. That’s when the Choice group, specifically the Comfort Inn Suites approached him to take over the hotel facility. That was in 2006.
It is now a three-and-a-half star hotel located just five minutes from downtown Victoria. It has 152 rooms, out of which (6) are suites. The Comfort Inn hotel accommodates both business and leisure travelers, along with many sport and travel groups. They are trying to develop a niche market for group booking