Industry Hospitality Area served Worldwide Headquarters Mineola Founded 1980 Type of business Private | Founders Steve Rushmore Website www.hvs.com Founder Steve Rush Number of employees 388 | |
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Subsidiaries Hvs International (Singapore) | ||
HVS is a consulting firm based in Mineola, New York that specializes in providing services to the hospitality industry. As of 2015, HVS operated out of 35 offices located in North America, Europe, Asia, South America, Africa and the Mid-East. In addition to its original offerings of consulting and valuation services for the lodging industry, HVS today provides multiple hospitality services and specializations in areas such as executive recruitment, investment banking, hotel management, hotel asset management, operational and marketing consulting, litigation support, golf facilities, hotel parking operations, court appointed receivership services, convention centers, sports and entertainment facilities, environmental sustainability, and risk management. The privately held firm performs approximately 5,000 assignments throughout the world for hotel owners, operators, and lenders each year.
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History
Originally known as Hospitality Valuation Services, the company was founded by Steve Rushmore in 1980 in a one-room office in Garden City, New York. Rushmore, a graduate of the Cornell University School of Hotel Administration, drew upon his experience as head of the hospitality consulting division of Helmsley-Spear, a position he took on in 1971. At that time, there were valuation companies specializing in appraising real estate (but not hotel operations) and accounting firms knowledgeable in hotel operations (but not real estate). Recognizing the need for an appraisal company that specialized in the hospitality arena, Rushmore pursued membership in the Appraisal Institute (then known as the American Institute of Real Estate Appraisers). When he received the MAI designation from the Institute in 1976, Rushmore enjoyed the distinction of being the Institute's only member with a degree in hotel administration.
Combining his Appraisal Institute membership with his hotel school degree from Cornell, Rushmore then wrote an appraisal textbook for the hospitality industry, The Valuation of Hotels and Motels, which the Institute published in 1978. The text has been updated four times, and the most recent publication is Hotels & Motels: Valuations and Market Studies.; this publication has been described as "the seminal text on the art and science of hotel appraisals". This, and other publications by Rushmore, established the methodology for appraising hotels that is today considered an industry standard.
Capitalizing on its singular status as the only consulting and valuation company dedicated solely to the hospitality industry, HVS expanded, opening a West Coast office in San Francisco five years later, followed by offices in London, Colorado, and Florida. Today, the company has a presence in nearly thirty-five cities on five continents.
Operations
The organizational structure and operations of HVS are modeled on that of other consulting firms, such as McKinsey & Company, particularly with regards to the company's recruitment of hospitality students from prestigious universities and its compensation structure. Although the learning curve is steep, those who thrive in the company's entrepreneurial environment have the opportunity to transfer to other offices in a different part of the globe. In a May 2010 cover story about HVS, Lodging Hospitality magazine opined, "The list of alumni reads like a who's who of the most highly regarded consultants, development executives and financial experts in the worldwide lodging industry."
To help market its hotel consulting and valuation services, HVS began disseminating a broad spectrum of complimentary information to the lodging industry. HVS encouraged its associates to publish articles on informative, timely, and interesting topics for the lodging industry, and the research and writings of HVS associates are published and cited in a number of academic journals .
HVS conducts seminars on hotel valuation for the Appraisal Institute and other organizations around the world and has trained more than 20,000 appraisers and industry professionals. HVS research and data-gathering about historical and projected hotel value trends, sales transaction data, compensation programs, franchise fees, hotel franchise development costs, and hotel renovation costs provides data to industry participants.
Research and conference sponsorship
Consistent with the academic background of the company's founder, HVS supports several institutions of higher learning that specialize in hospitality. To foster academic research in the field, HVS endows professorial chairs at both New York University's Tisch Center for Hospitality, Tourism, and Sports Management and Cornell University's hotel school HVS also funded Cornell University's Rushmore–Jennings Computer Library and is a corporate partner in the university's Center for Hospitality Research.
Each year, HVS plays a significant role in New York University's International Hospitality Industry Investment Conference, where the company presents its annual report on Hotel Valuation and Transaction Trends for the U.S. Lodging Industry to conference attendees. An HVS executive serves as the conference coordinator, and others associated with the company serve as panel moderators and speakers. Additionally, in the months prior to the conference, the firm provides insight for the development of the Manhattan Hotel Market Overview Survey conducted by NYU graduate students. HVS distributes the results of the student survey and analysis to conference attendees as part of the firm's annual Manhattan Hotel Market Overview.
HVS has launched other major industry conferences around the globe, organizing the Hotel Investment Conference South Asia (HICSA), the China Hotel Investment Conference (CHIC), the Caribbean Hospitality Investment Conference and Operations Summit (CHICOS), the Hotel Operations Summit India (HOSI), and (THINC Indonesia) Tourism Hotel Investment and Networking Conference Indonesia.
Key publications
Recent articles and presentations authored by HVS principals and associates are accessible on the HVS website.