Virgin Hotels CEO Raul Leal believes the company’s Nashville location offers something for every potential guest.
There are spaces to escape and read books and multiple food and beverage options, all part of what Leal describes as the perfect blend of business and pleasure.
“We’re just happy to be here. We’ve wanted to be in Nashville since the day we launched the brand,” Leal told the Nashville Business Journal. “We think that when people see the hotel, they’ll know that we were diligent in paying homage to this wonderful city. We hope that everyone enjoys it and likes it as much as we do.”
Virgin Hotels, the lifestyle hotel brand developed by Virgin Group founder Sir Richard Branson, opened July 1 at 1 Music Square W. The 14-story hotel features 262 rooms (dubbed “chambers”); multiple food and beverage options, such as the brand’s signature Commons Club; and a rooftop lounge with a pool.
We spoke with Leal about the property’s construction delays and what the company is seeing from future bookings. Here is our Q&A, edited for length and clarity.
What was it like when you first walked through the finished property?
It definitely takes your breath away. There are so many spectacular little settings. There’s something for everyone as you walk around the hotels. There are places to get food and beverage, cuddle up and read a book, amazing bar spaces and a beautiful restaurant. There’s something for everyone at this one. Of all the hotels we’ve opened, this one captures the spirit of the Virgin brand and Virgin Hotels perfectly. Our brand is really about choices, and giving consumers something more than a hotel. We want people to have a space for whatever they decide to do. If you want to read, hang out by the pool, grab a bite to eat, see great scenery, you can do all that here. It’s a great place for business or pleasure.
Why open now in Nashville, given Covid-19 and the downturn in tourism?
Well, we have to open it. We were scheduled to open in April, but didn’t because of Covid. But the building is finished. We think there’s still going to be considerable travel on the leisure side coming up. In this environment, there’s probably not a good answer to when to open or why to open, but from what we’ve seen from reopening our hotel in Dallas a few weeks ago, the Thursday through Sunday business is pretty strong. People want to have little staycations and weekend vacations. We think it’ll be the same thing here until business travel recovers.
It’s been five years since you guys announced you’d be coming to the market. What caused some of the delays?
Essentially at the beginning, we didn’t control the project. It was owned by another developer. After about a year and a half, we decided that we were really interested in taking over the project. We bought the project from the developer. We had to restart it. We had to restart all the designs again. We didn’t really like some of the initial designs for the city of Nashville. That’s what took the most time, redesigning the entire place. It’s a big building in a small footprint. We always wanted to be really cognizant that we are right in the middle of a local community, right in the middle of Music Row. We really wanted to get the design right here because it felt like this building dropped down in the middle of the community.
What do you like about being on Music Row?
The legacy of the Virgin brand is in music. When we found the address of 1 Music Row, we thought it was the perfect location for us. We look for locations that are grounded in the local community. The locals are really our bread and butter because our hotels do lots of food and beverage, activations and entertainment. It’s important for us to be in a location where we can be the locals’ favorite hotel. We love that this location ties into Virgin’s music brand.
Nashville has seen a lot of hotels open in recent years. What sets Virgin apart from other hotels?
There’s been a lot of nice hotels open. We’re fans and friends of all those. Virgin brings a global brand with 60 million customers. The brand is known for a bunch of different things, but it’s really known to champion the consumer. We don’t nickel and dime our customers. We make sure that our pricing policies are fair. It’s a cheeky, irreverent brand with a sense of humor. We don’t take ourselves too seriously. We make good use of technology in a way that hopefully helps the consumer have a better experience. We have an app called Lucy. It’s perfect for the climate with everything that’s going on with Covid because it really allows you to have service without coming into contact with any team members. The Virgin brand is really known for that innovation. We’re going to push the envelope, we’re going to champion the consumer and we’re going to entertain people.
What have you seen from the early bookings as we get deeper into the summer?
What we’re seeing is the weekends are starting to get really good demands with Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays. Certainly the food and beverage side, we expect it to be very busy. We are actively practicing all of the CDC’s Covid guidelines. We’re being very careful about that because any business that’s open right now has to be incredibly responsible. We’re certainly seeing an uptick in food and beverage reservations already. We’re seeing a pretty good demand pace for the fourth quarter. Around September and October, we’re starting to see some midweek corporate bookings as people are getting a little optimistic that business will start coming back.
