Morgan City Holiday Inn to change name

Holiday Inn Morgan City is one of three flagship hotels in the United States with an exterior corridor that will change over to new ownership and name in April.
As of April 21, the new name will be the Clarion Hotel under ownership of Choice Hotels.
The Holiday Inn opened in the Morgan City community August 1973.
“It has withstood several ups and downs of the oil industry,” Holiday Inn Morgan City Director of Operations Denny Humphrey said.
Many local and international companies utilize the hotel for accommodating its employees during offshore crew change and training classes.
The employees’ customer service and hotel provisions are cited as the main reasons for being able to survive the dismal financial years of the parish.
“We treat our guests like family,” Human Resources Manager Peggy Sanders said.
“We have things we offer that other hotels don’t, like a No. 1 restaurant, popping bar …,” Executive Housekeeper Brian McEndree said.
The hotel has also been the host for actors, actresses, and movie production crews.
Over the years, this hotel has temporarily housed Denzel Washington, Brad Pitt, Sean Penn, Paula Patton, Jude Law, and even music legend Percy Sledge.
The general manager in-formed staff members about the change of ownership two years ago.
In most industries after receiving that kind of news, many get nervous and seek other opportunities for new employment. That was not the case with General Man-ager Sharon Howell’s staff.
“Not one of my key de-partment heads chose to do that,” Howell said.
“They chose to ride out the storm and see what was going to happen, knowing that the job market was getting soft and people were getting laid off everywhere else.
“They just trusted what I was telling them all along,” Howell said. “And I was completely transparent letting them know what was coming and what was going to happen.”
The department heads’ tenure at the hotel range from four to 25 years.
In the past, many of them left the Holiday Inn for other job opportunities only to return to the hotel. Humphrey has worked on and off at the hotel since he was 16 years old.
Department heads kept the new ownership information confidential. But there was speculation about the Holiday Inn’s future once the Holiday Inn Express opened in the city.
“We really didn’t have to say anything,” Chief Engineer Tate Besse said, “be-cause when they built the new one down the road, everybody already had an opinion of what was going to happen to us in town anyway.
“So, we didn’t have to say anything.”
The hotel’s license ended with InterContinental Hotels Group PLC. The hotel group decided not to renew its license for the exterior corridor type of property.
Humphrey contacted the hotel group’s chief executive officer to plead the case for renewing Holiday Inn’s license. It led to a meeting in Atlanta with the vice president of franchise development for North America.
“I emailed the CEO to let him know of our concern that we were going to lose our franchise,” Humphrey said. “And that there was so much history here and so many people here that worked for the hotel many years.
“And that I didn’t think it was a good idea to take us out of the system.”
The hotel has been a mainstay in the community for the past 43 years as the Holiday Inn.
“We’ll all still maintain the standards we’ve lived and breathed 10 plus years,” Director of Catering and Conference Services Kristy Gant said.
“To see the Holiday Inn brand go away is bittersweet because we lived every day that culture of service,” Gant said. “The culture is embedded in every one of our employees.
“We’ll learn new things from the new brand that’s coming in. And we’ll have much more to offer the community when we let employees blossom in that new environment as well.”
The hotel is “moving on to bigger and better things …,” Howell said. “They want to make us a flagship hotel for Clarion now.”