Like many in the hospitality enterprise, CoralTree Hospitality Group President Tom Luersen grew up within the trade. In his case, that formative expertise was a job on the Galt Home, a Louisville, Kentucky lodge the place his father served as normal supervisor. There, he mowed lawns at 13 and functioned in a managerial function—assistant entrance workplace supervisor—at age 16. Smitten from the beginning, he possible might have simply continued on the time-honored path from entry stage to GM with out lacking a beat, Luersen recollects. The trail he took as an alternative, he advised LODGING, included incomes a hospitality diploma and increasing into almost all areas of the enterprise, culminating in working CoralTree, a full-service hospitality administration firm that focuses on life-style and resort asset courses, together with built-in mixed-use communities in addition to trip residences. And he achieved all of it whereas taking to coronary heart the recommendation {of professional} baseball player-turned-hospitality legend Steve Bartolin to “be your self.”
An Early Fascination
Luersen says he was intrigued by the trade at the same time as a excessive schooler. “I simply beloved the power of it, the ebb and movement of at all times having individuals in entrance of you and constructing a crew.”
Whereas a lot is manufactured from how anybody can begin on the backside and work their means up in hospitality, it by no means occurred to Luersen to bypass faculty. He subsequently headed all the way down to Miami and enrolled in Florida Worldwide College (FIU) to pursue a hospitality diploma. Whereas carrying a full course load and in the end graduating on time and with distinction, Luersen labored full time—not within the acquainted turf of lodge operations, however in managing two totally different eating places. Luersen says his father was a serious affect on his values and management method, but it surely was Bartolin, former Detroit Tigers participant and present chairman of The Broadmoor and Sea Island Resort, whom he regards as his trade mentor. He recollects their assembly in 1984, when he moved from Miami to Nashville to start a gross sales job at Opryland Resort, which was the biggest conference lodge within the nation on the time. “He had me sit for over an hour, after which he emerged to inform me I’d as an alternative be working in conference providers,” says Luersen, including that he by no means regretted taking that job. “We had been internet hosting conferences [for associations such as] ASAE and MPI, and I discovered all the things about massive conventions.”
He says Bartolin, who stays a pal, was a pure chief who didn’t purchase into the IBM-style “company picture” that was then the rule in enterprise. “He was such an envoy of the notion of being your self. He simply had this quite common means of speaking with everybody from CEOs of firms to the housekeepers of the lodge. He demonstrated his ardour for his job in all he did, and I discovered it very empowering to consider that I might be profitable simply by being myself and dealing onerous.”
The Path to the C-Suite
In 1986, following his Opryland place, Luersen went to Kingsmill Resort, the place he served as director of convention and catering, after which resident supervisor. In 1991, he joined The Woodlands Company’s hospitality division, overseeing its portfolio of resorts, inns, company convention facilities, and membership operations, and collaborating within the grasp planning the 36,000-acre group. He stayed with The Woodlands till 1998, when, as vice chairman of the hospitality division, he assisted in taking the corporate non-public and promoting it. Finally, he put himself out of a job—that’s, till he was recruited by Lowe Enterprises, the place he has remained for 25 years.
It was at Lowe the place Luersen turned concerned in multi-property administration, beginning as vice chairman and managing director of its Sunriver Resort Restricted Partnership’s resort group. After that appointment, in 2003, he turned regional vice chairman and managing director of its Vacation spot Lodges & Resorts. Subsequent, in 2012, he was appointed COO at Lowe Hospitality Resort Communities, after which in 2014, he turned EVP Operations of Vacation spot Lodges & Resorts. By 2016, he was COO of Two Roads Hospitality, which was shaped in 2016 when Vacation spot Lodges & Resorts, owned by Lowe, acquired Commune Lodges + Resorts. In 2018, he assumed his present place at CoralTree, an entirely owned subsidiary of Lowe.
Trying Again
Luersen remarks on the various challenges confronted throughout his lengthy profession, together with double-digit inflation within the early Eighties, the turmoil of 9/11 and its aftermath, the Nice Recession of 2008, after which the COVID-19 pandemic. “I needed to do issues in enterprise to outlive the economics and but lead in a clear and valuistic means, which generally meant laying individuals off, then rehiring them.”
He says, too, there have been private challenges that got here with concurrently rising each a profession and household, which incorporates his spouse of 37 years and three youngsters. “There have been three strikes as soon as there have been youngsters to think about, however fairly than transfer my household, I traveled after I was COO for Vacation spot Lodges for years.”
Luersen is aware of his is really successful story. “Little question about it; I’ve had a superb profession, partly as a result of I knew at an early age the place I wished to go and had a plan for reaching my targets,” he says. This meant figuring out and implementing what he believed had been aggressive benefits, together with buying a university diploma regardless of arriving at FIU with hospitality expertise that went far past the everyday internship.
Luersen says what he beloved concerning the trade at 13 nonetheless resonates greater than 40 years later. “As somebody who doesn’t very similar to routine, I like that it’s at all times altering.”
Classes From a Lengthy Profession: The Mindset, Drive, and Savviness it Takes to Reach Hospitality
CoralTree Hospitality Group President Tom Luersen’s a long time in hospitality have yielded many key learnings, together with a number of that may assist newcomers to the sector.
- Be a Scholar First: Luersen describes qualities that bought his profession up and working: “You need to be an ideal listener and an ideal scholar and be capable of apply what you be taught to the job you do.”
- Deliver Ardour to the Place: Ardour about his chosen profession is on the root of recommendation he presents others, together with his youngsters—all of whom have chosen hospitality careers. “You need to love what you do. That is very true for hospitality, a tricky enterprise that’s 24 hours a day, three hundred and sixty five days out of the 12 months.”
- Distinguish Your self within the Business: Whereas Luersen says the tutorial route he adopted is probably not for everybody, “being curious and having the power and enthusiasm to pursue that curiosity” has enabled him to face out in an trade the place there’s loads of similarity. “There are such a lot of world manufacturers like Marriott, Hyatt, Hilton, and others which have so many similarities; nonetheless, to develop, I like to search out artistic and aggressive methods to be totally different that in the end embrace caring for the friends and the crew.”
- Keep Open to Alternatives: For many who see the highest of the hospitality profession ladder because the GM place, Luersen advises they take a better look to establish alternatives far past the acquainted lodge constructing. “There are such a lot of totally different choices for somebody pursuing hospitality, comparable to a wide range of totally different asset courses starting from motor inns to luxurious vacation spot resorts to niches in golf, spa and wellness, trip leases, and rather more,” he explains. “It’s so huge, I recommend exploring no matter facet of the sector you want and why you prefer it, after which begin there.”