The History of the Hospitality Group

Hospitality Pty Ltd is one of the largest wholly Australian owned motel and apartment management companies and is credited with the honour of constructing Western Australia’s first motel and proceeding to lead the way in the development of tourism in Western Australia.

Since 1955 the Hospitality Group has been at the forefront of tourism in WA, in fact nationally, with the expansion of the then named Highway/Village Group to successfully operate hotels and motels in every state of Australia along with one in New Zealand.

DEVELOPMENT OF HIGHWAY MOTELS
In 1961, at the request of The Hon. Sir David Brand (former Premier and Minister for Tourism of WA), John Pye, founder of Hospitality Pty Ltd (then known as Highway Motels Ltd) constructed the first motel in Western Australia.

The company developed and acquired motels in Kalgoorlie, Geraldton, Bunbury, Albany, Esperance and Carnarvon. Highway Motels steadily increased the number of its operations to cover the major Western Australian towns from Madura (in joint venture with the Shell Company of Australia Ltd) in the East to Esperance in the South and Port Hedland in the North.

The company also added other types of accommodation, from a caravan park to five star hotels, locally in Western Australia as well as in other States and New Zealand.

Highway Motels then took over the Village Motel Group who operated motels in Victoria and Tasmania and was renamed Highway Village Motels Pty Ltd and built a new property at Mt Gambier in South Australia.

The Group also purchased the ill fated Noah’s Hotel Group, which has since gone onto form the basis of the Rydges Hotel Group. In 1980, the Company re-branded the Highway Motels to Hospitality Holdings Ltd to create a unique name as there were several other hotels and motels operating under ‘Highway’ names especially in the Eastern States.

By 1987, the Group controlled two thousand rooms and employed more than 1500 employees. At one stage, the company was the biggest owner of hotels and motels in Australia.

In 1987, John Pye retired from full time work and the company completed an agreement with the Greater Union Organisation Pty Ltd (G.U.O) that saw the high rise hotel division of the company become part of G.U.O’s Rydges Hotel Group, and Hospitality Inns Pty Ltd purchased full control of its Western Australian motels. Chris Pye took over as CEO of the Group.

In 1989 Hospitality Inns purchased a 50% stake in one of Australia’s leading inbound tour operators “Great Aussie Holidays”, a stake hold that is still maintained today.

DEVELOPMENT OF QUEST APARTMENTS
In 1989 Hospitality Inns resolved to diversify into the Serviced Apartment sector of the Tourism Industry which presented a significant market opportunity for the Hospitality Group. As a result they acquired their first serviced apartment management contract over the Quest Arlington apartment complex in South Perth.

They subsequently acquired the management contracts for the Quest Victoria Apartments (now Quest Subiaco) complex in Hay Street Subiaco, the Quest West End Establishment in Perth and the Quest on James establishment in Northbridge all very successful developments undertaken by the Fini Group of Companies with consulting and management services provided by Hospitality Pty Ltd.

In 1995 the Hospitality Group established a very substantial franchise marketing and referral organisation for serviced apartments in a joint venture with the Quest Inns Group based in Melbourne linking properties throughout Australia under the “Quest Serviced Apartments” banner.

The Quest Serviced Apartments brand has enjoyed enormous growth and now represents more than 2000 apartments in 111 properties around Australia, New Zealand and Fiji with more than 326 of those apartments in Western Australia. Quest Serviced Apartments is Australasia’s largest national master franchise operator for serviced apartments. Today Hospitality Inns still maintains ownership of 50% of the Quest International Brand and 50% of Quest Apartments WA.

DEVELOPMENT OF BEST WESTERN IN WESTERN AUSTRALIA
In 1992 Hospitality Inns created a statewide network of quality 3 ½ - 4 ½ star hotels and motels aimed at both the corporate and leisure markets, aptly named Hospitality Inns Australia. This then brought the international hotel group “Best Western” to WA in 1994 in a joint venture creating a new referral network “Best Western Hospitality” opening up a network of over 250 accommodation properties throughout Australia and being part of the “Worlds Largest Hotel Chain” with over 4200 properties in 80 countries.

The network became the most effective motel referral and marketing network in Western Australia.

Since the establishment of the network many other excellent Western Australian properties have joined giving Best Western a very substantial complement of highly sought after Western Australian motels and hotels.

In order to allow Best Western Australia to comply with certain internal Best Western network requirements the shareholders and directors of Hospitality Inns Australia agreed to sell back the ownership of the WA network to Best Western Australia.

SAVING SKYWEST
In 2001 the Hospitality Group helped to establish a syndicate to bid for the Skywest Airlines assets from the receiver of Ansett Airlines, which eventually joined others in a small syndicate of WA investors who purchased Skywest Airlines. Hospitality Inns was the seventh largest owner of Skywest. This reflects the Hospitality Group’s ongoing commitment to the development of WA tourism projects and to support this very important and historically profitable WA regional airline.

LAUNCHING DRIVEWA.COM
In 2004, with a significant drop in the corporate market, the Hospitality Group launched an innovative tourist website, DriveWA.com, aimed at attracting the leisure self drive market to regional WA and in particular to their five motels in Esperance, Kalgoorlie, Geraldton, Carnarvon and Port Hedland.

DEVELOPMENT OF ECO RETREATS
2006 saw the formation of a new company, The Eco Company which aims to develop and/or manage a series of eco retreats throughout Australia under the new Ecomodation brand. The Eco Company is a initiative and joint venture between Hospitality Inns and well respected Perth based investment and property group the Hawaiian Group as well as innovative builder and hospitality operator Karl Plunkett’s Eco Constructions.

This organisation developed a new eco accommodation brand, Ecomodation, with:
- Eco Structures providing the design expertise and building the tents and cabins
- Eco Constructions offering building services where required
- Hospitality Inns providing the management and its divisions

The Hospitality Group through Ecomodation will provide sustainable managements for environmentally friendly retreats throughout Australia. The first eco retreat opened in April 2007 in the spectacular Karijini National Park for the Gumala Aboriginal Corporation.

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The Hospitality Group in the past 45 years has strongly invested in the development of Western Australia’s tourism industry. The Group continues to lead the way with its five owned and operated regional motels under the Best Western branding, the continual development of the serviced apartment sector with Quest Apartments, the development of a new eco retreat brand, Ecomodation and the encouragement of regional tourism through DriveWA.com.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
Copyright 2007