How Chapel Hill hotels are keeping you safe for all your traveling needs

Getting out of the house is tempting – but is it safe?

If you're a parent hoping to visit your student, a student wanting to safely host guests for the weekend or a member of our local community looking for a staycation, finding a place to stay might seem too hard, or just not worth it.

At ATMA Hotel Group, safety is the No. 1 priority. 

How has the hospitality business changed in the last year and what changes do you expect to be permanent? 

The biggest change is in the way we prepare for arriving guests. We take great pride in having some of the highest cleanliness scores at our portfolio of hotels. 

However, in response to Covid-19 we realized that we needed to implement new practices to keep our guests and employees safe. 

When Covid-19 was still ramping up in June 2020, ATMA decided to commit more $250,000 to improved hygiene standards. The decision was made long before our brand partners, Marriott, Hilton and Intercontinental Hotels, introduced their cleanliness programs. When they did, we quickly realized that our own company protocols exceeded anything else in the industry. 

Since then, ATMA has installed air purification units in air handlers and guest rooms that remove bacteria, viruses, gasses, odors and dust. We also invested in purchasing electrostatic sprayers at each of our hotels to disinfect and sanitize all guest rooms, public spaces and meeting rooms. 

All ATMA employees have received Count On Me NC cleanliness certifications in addition to the brand trainings. Our protocols are called the ATMA P.R.O.M.I.S.E. and are designed to enhance and elevate the brand standards being used in many other hotels. P.R.O.M.I.S.E. stands for People, Readiness, Organic, Management, Innovation, Safety and Enjoy (your stay). 

These new cleanliness policies will remain a part of our hotel management long after Covid-19 has been defeated. Our cleanliness protocols are practiced daily and are improved as we find more efficient ways to protect the safety and health of our guests. We are constantly adapting to the current times to deliver the same extraordinary service as always.  

How has ATMA Hotel Group responded to problems caused by Covid-19?

Although ATMA Hotel Group is a Chapel Hill-based company we own hotels located in Chapel Hill/Durham, Charlotte, Raleigh and Cashiers/Sapphire Valley, North Carolina. 

Our company has always been involved in community projects but when Covid-19 began to grow we realized that our product could be repurposed for a variety of sheltering needs. In the early days of the pandemic when the UNC campus closed, we worked with the housing department to provide displaced students a place to stay until arrangements could be made to travel home. 

Later, our company worked with contacts at UNC Medical Center to house temporary staff, patient’s families and first responders. Even though the need for emergency housing has tailed off we are providing families with a place to get away for a while when the four walls of their house begin to close in on them. There is also a smaller market of home-based employees that prefer one of our weekly packages to working at home for days or weeks without a break. 

ATMA will always recognize the importance of community even after Covid-19 is no longer the threat that it is today. 

As Covid-19 vaccines begin to take hold and people begin traveling once again, what are you doing to welcome them back to your hotels?  

There is a lot of planning going on in our company. 

First, we are expanding our portfolio in the Chapel Hill market. There is a great deal of excitement over the New Sheraton Hotel Chapel Hill as we bring a new and fresh look to Chapel Hill. This hotel started life as the Europa Hotel years ago and later converted to the Sheraton brand. 

ATMA purchased the hotel in August 2019 and began planning a major renovation to begin in the fall of 2020. When the pandemic hit, we saw an opportunity to take the hotel out of service to start the renovation early including every area of the hotel. We will begin pre-opening hardhat tours in June. 

Once the Sheraton Hotel Chapel Hill reopens this summer it will have 170 guest rooms and 16,000 square feet of meeting space. We can see the light at the end of the tunnel as we are just beginning to see large group bookings commit for late 2021 and 2022. 

There is also much anticipation around the opening of the Tru by Hilton Hotel Chapel Hill just down the street from the Sheraton. The Tru brand was created by Hilton to bring together a fun, inviting hotel experience with affordable pricing. There will be more coming out about this unique hotel experience in the coming months.

This article was submitted by ATMA Hotel Group.