Destination hub: Leo Ledohowski, CMA, FCMA, builds his diverse brand by targeting everyone. Can you be everything to everybody? Yes, he says, if you do it right.

To call Leo Ledohowski, CMA, FCMA, a hotelier seems inadequate. The president and CEO of Canad Inns, the largest player in Manitoba's regional hotel market, did welcome 5.5 million customers last year to his company's 8 locations, but going to a Canad Inn hotel is about more than finding a place to rest your head.

"We create destination points," says Ledohowski. "A combination of food and beverages, nightclubs, water parks and theme suites offers our patrons something extra at every location."

Although rooms are still at the heart of most of Ledohowski's development ideas, he has taken the many strong components of his hotel chain and started to strategically adapt them in new ways--in Winnipeg, other parts of Manitoba and, fairly soon, south of the border as well.

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Location, location, location 

When I caught up with Ledohowski in February, he was heading out that day for the grand opening of the ninth Canad Inns property, a hotel complex at the Keystone Centre in Brandon, Manitoba.

The $20 million hotel development includes 159 rooms, a glass-enclosed two-storey waterslide and pool area, a 250-seat restaurant under Canad Inns' AALTO's Garden Cafe banner, an English-style pub, a 350-person capacity club/bar, and smaller lounge and cabaret-style theatres.

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This is a substantial addition to an already expansive exhibition and entertainment centre. The Keystone Centre itself has 8 curling surfaces, two skating rinks, a hockey arena, more than 60,000 square feet of convention floor space, seating for 5,000 to watch a hockey game and 7,000 for a concert, an amphitheatre, outdoor equestrian show rings, and shopping within walking distance.

It is this type of development in which Ledohowski is aiming his investment--complexes that offer something for his patrons year-round. Everything necessary for a relaxed visit is close at hand.

His other properties are similarly strategically located and offer their own unique draw. For instance, Canad Inns has the only hotel linked directly to the Club Regent Casino in Transcona. The 146-room location opened in 2000. The 93-room Portage la Prairie property is home to the city's curling club, includes a water park, stands adjacent to the main shopping centre and provides a room for video lottery gaming.

Most of the company's properties also provide dining and dancing opportunities--Canad Inns' own AALTO's Garden Cafe, Garbonzo's Italian eatery, Tavern United English-style pub, and its series of nightclubs, including Winnipeg's largest, the Tijuana Yacht Club. Ledohowski regularly reinvents these clubs to keep the crowds interested, and has now taken the chain online at www.wildonwinnipeg.com, where anyone who can't make it to the club can listen in on Canad Clubs Radio, which streams club tracks 24/7.

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Hub-and-spoke success

Anyone looking at the Canad Inns business model for the first time can't help but wonder at it. After all, what could be riskier than trying to be all things to all people? Ledohowski understands this reaction but has a very clear strategic method for his growth plans.

"We don't have a large geographic dispersion," he notes. "We take in something of an oval shaped area of the map--drawing customers from Brandon to Thunder Bay, and south from about Grand Forks, North Dakota. It's something of a hub-and-spoke approach to the business. Because all the locations are within a reasonable distance, the general managers at each hotel can receive lots of support from head office. We have about 35 people in our head office working in marketing, central accounting, and many other critical areas of our operations. The general managers know that they can count on this support. The envelope of each hotel might look different but each is built from the same basic elements."

The company maintains a high level of service through its own certified training courses, through which it updates and establishes consistency among its more than 1,500 employees. As Ledohowski makes abundantly clear, without quality staff, no business of this nature could survive, never mind thrive.

"Our staff has the passion, drive and capacity to achieve this consistent level of excellence," he says. "This exceptional group of people has the ability to evolve and continuously achieve in an outstanding manner, managing the difficult execution of our unique approach to the hospitality industry."

Of course, reporting is a critical part of keeping all of the disparate information the company collects in line, as Ledohowski readily points out. "The secret is segmentation, segmentation, segmentation--reports, reports, reports. We have a strong model that offers detailed reports and numbers that, at a glance, can explain how each part of a particular operation is doing. You have to have all of this information to run such an operation smoothly, so our accounting services are very important."

A loyal, locally-based clientele is at the heart of the success of the Canad Inns operations as well. And it's a clientele that is looking for entertainment destinations close to home a lot more these days.

"I call it a regional coccooning system--all of the people within that area, including people from the U.S., see Winnipeg as their closest metropolis," says Ledohowski. "Those are the clients we are aiming for, and we're the strongest regional player by far."

Recent world events have actually worked in the company's favour in this respect. Since 9/11, for instance, although people still want to go away for vacation, they're more likely to get in their cars and drive for 5-6 hours than fly.

"People can still fly but with the added security now, it's a hassle," Ledohowski says. "With more regional travelling, our business has grown. Wisconsin has experienced a similar trend. Their water parks have drawn a lot more business."

Branding boost

Ledohowski started learning the hotel business at an early age, helping his father run a small group of hotels in Saskatchewan. But he went on from there to pursue a Bachelor of Arts, a Bachelor of Commerce, an MBA from McMaster University and, of course, his CMA designation. His education lead him, briefly, into a career as a commerce professor, first at Carleton University and then the University of Manitoba. He is also a Certified Hotel Administrator, a designation offered by the American Hotel and Motel Association. Ledohowski was recently appointed to the board of the Business Development Bank of Canada.

The hospitality business was clearly in Ledohowski's blood because he bought his first property, the Seven Oaks Motel, at the age of 26. But the beginning of what would become Canad Inns really occurred when he bought Fort Garry's Norlander in 1978. This was followed by the purchase of Transcona's Golden Oak in 1979, and Windsor Park's Windsorian in 1983. Four years later, he built his first entirely new location, and from there the growth continued.

Perhaps the largest single move Ledohowski has made in the past 10 years, however, was a name change--from Hospitality Corporation of Manitoba, Inc., to Canad Corporation of Manitoba Inc. The name and the company's distinctive logo created a new brand recognition. And since then, Ledohowski has used that effective branding concept to build recognition for his clubs and his restaurants.

Indeed, this brand expansion started in earnest this past year when construction began on the first standalone Tavern United pub across the street from the MTS Centre, home of the Manitoba Moose AHL hockey team. The restaurant will be an anchor for the renovated and refurbished former Eaton's Powerhouse Building. It will have 8,406 square feet of dining space and a rooftop patio. While it will serve as a destination for concert-goers and hockey fans, it will also be a sports bar where people can go to watch all of the big sporting events.

Although no hotel is involved, it's yet another way to get the Canad Inns concepts out into the public in a central location.

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Partnerships and the public

The next Canad Inns development will push the bounds of the company's market in a new way. The new hotel will be attached to the Alerus Center in Grand Forks, North Dakota, and is slated for completion in 2006. It will include a 192-room hotel, a 40,000-square-foot water park, three restaurants (AALTO's, Tavern United and a Garbonzo's), and a family entertainment centre.

"The Alerus Center is a convention centre and a football stadium, with 500,000 square feet of exhibition space--including the field area, because the Center uses an artificial turf that can be rolled up and stored very easily and quickly," notes Ledohowski.

A canny entrepreneur, Ledohowski notices details like these and always considers how they might be adopted elsewhere. For instance, he hopes that this turf technology can be used in yet another new development under consideration in Winnipeg.

In late 2004, the Red River Exhibition Association (RREA), Canad Inns and the board of directors of the Winnipeg Football Club launched a $250,000 feasibility study to examine the viability of a plan to build a new complex. The complex would include a new 200,000 square foot exhibition facility, a 250-room hotel and 40,000 square foot water park, and a 30,000 seat climate-controlled and expandable football stadium. The complex would be located in the 450-acre Red River Exhibition Park.

"This process is unique in Canada, if not North America," says Ledohowski. "The Red River Exhibition has some facilities but wants to expand. At the same time, the Winnipeg Blue Bombers needs a new football stadium. This public/private partnership could be good for the whole community."

As Ledohowski noted at the announcement of the study, "The potential benefits for our city and our province are substantial, including new jobs, tourism and economic development. The combination of the existing programming and the components of this proposal, creates a synergy for a unique 'destination' that should prove to be viable and sustainable."

Canad Inns has certainly proven to be a sustainable concept. In 2004, the company received Platinum Club status as one of Canada's 50 Best Managed Companies as judged by Deloitte, CIBC Commercial Banking, The National Post and Queen's School of Business. This award recognizes companies that have sustained a standard of excellence and leadership in all areas of their business practices, and have qualified in the award program for at least six consecutive years. Canad Inns is one of 21 (one of five from the Province of Manitoba) companies throughout Canada that have been awarded Platinum Club membership, in recognition of their continued outstanding accomplishments. And based on sales volume, the company is the 14th largest hotel company in the country. With Ledohowski's targeted, strategic approach to development, this trend is only like to improve.

Robert Colman is editor-in-chief of CMA Management.