One of the more ironic things about President Trump’s connection with his most ardent supporters is that many of them would not be invited to his private country clubs and could not afford a night in one of his luxury hotels.
That may change soon. The president’s two adult sons, who have taken over the management of his companies while he is in Washington, this month announced their affiliation with four hotels in the Mississippi Delta.
One, under the new Scion brand, is expected to open in early 2018 in Cleveland. The Trump Hotels company also has franchise agreements for three other facilities under another new name, American Idea. These reportedly are existing hotels in Cleveland, Clarksdale and Greenville that will be converted to the new brand.
The Mississippi hotels will not feature the Trump name. The president’s sons, Donald Jr. and Eric, said earlier this month that it will remain reserved for its luxury properties.
The Scion and American Idea brands will be a notch below luxury properties, but a press release said they will be an improvement over most mid-scale hotel locations.
The Trumps will be working with a Mississippi family of Indian-Americans that owns 17 hotels in the state. Two brothers, Dinesh and Suresh Chawla, run the company that their father, Dr. V.K. Chawla, started in the 1980s. ...
A story in The Washington Post about the Mississippi hotels said Trump’s sons got the idea to expand beyond the luxury market from their campaign experiences in 2015 and 2016.
“There’s a market here that we’ve been missing our entire lives by focusing only on the high end,” Donald Trump Jr. said.
He is certainly correct. Mississippians and their visitors like nice things, too, and if the new hotels can provide good service at a decent price, they should be successful.
• Enterprise-Journal, McComb.
