{"id":440,"date":"2022-01-01T00:07:10","date_gmt":"2022-01-01T08:07:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/business.wsu.edu\/crimsonpineapple\/?p=440"},"modified":"2025-10-28T15:27:14","modified_gmt":"2025-10-28T22:27:14","slug":"emma-claire-spring-2022","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/business.wsu.edu\/crimsonpineapple\/2022\/01\/01\/emma-claire-spring-2022\/","title":{"rendered":"Aspiring Hotelier Emma Claire Spring Sweeps $50K Pitch Competition"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\"Emma
Emma Claire Spring won the She Has a Deal (SHaD) hotel pitch competition and $50,000 in equity.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

It wasn\u2019t hopscotch and hula-hoops that intrigued Emma Claire Spring<\/a> (\u201921) as a little girl growing up in Whitefish, Montana, it was playing \u201chotel.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When her family had friends overnight, she\u2019d imagine the guest bedroom was a hotel room and add her own touch of hospitality by spraying air freshener in the room and leaving a piece of candy on the pillow. In middle school, she\u2019d make lists of necessities like shampoo and sheets and place pretend online orders to outfit a boutique lodging establishment that had long since been on her mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her youthful daydreams turned into reality on June 5, 2021, when she won the She Has a Deal<\/a> (SHaD) hotel pitch competition and $50,000 in equity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A recent graduate of the WSU School of Hospitality Business Management<\/a>, Spring drew from her business training to formulate a pitch for a Delta Hotel conversion located in Chantilly, Virginia. Her business, Celeste Companies, focused on renovating the existing property to add meeting space and an American-style casual dining concept.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Leading up to the Pitch<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI knew very little about real estate or finance,\u201d said Spring, \u201cbut because my hospitality program is immersed in the Carson College of Business, I had solid, hands-on business experience to draw from.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of those experiences was traveling to a conference in New York City with the WSU Sigma Iota hospitality club\u2014that\u2019s where she heard about the competition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During a breakout session, panelist Tracy L. Prigmore spoke to the attendees about the pitch competition sponsored by SHaD, an educational real estate investment platform that creates pathways to hotel ownership and development for young women.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The opportunity captured Spring\u2019s attention immediately.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWho would think that a program this niche and specific to my dream would exist for young females? It was not a question of if but when I would enter it,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She entered the 2021 competition and spent several months preparing by attending SHaD\u2019s multi-module education series, which provides coaching and educates the contestants about sourcing, evaluating, financing and pitching a hotel investment deal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The financial modeling was the most difficult to master, Spring said. Typically, investors create financial models by looking at a hotel\u2019s past performance, but the global pandemic disrupted financial data. \u201cI really had to take the time to understand the data and how to project future performance,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She also leaned on Prigmore, who coached her through the process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEmma Claire\u2019s pitch stood out because of her eloquence,\u201d said Prigmore. \u201cHer presentation included all of the key elements needed to persuade investors to take action, and she elegantly exuded confidence through the entire pitch, including the Q&A.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Spring Hits a Home Run with Hotel Acquisition Proposal<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Spring had 15 minutes to convince the judges why her hotel deal was the top choice for the $50,000 grand prize.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her winning proposal included negotiating key money from Marriott and identifying a management company to increase operational efficiencies. \u201cTo create upside for my investors, the property would undergo a major renovation with a budget of $10.7 million for capital improvements,\u201d she said. \u201cConverting the property from a 232-key, select-service Holiday Inn to a full-service Delta by Marriott for $27 million was also well below replacement cost.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Spring, who presented solo, beat out four other teams from Cornell University, San Diego State University, Michigan State University, and the Zigurat Global Institute of Technology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFor a solo pitcher to win just shows that if you want something badly enough and are willing to work for it, big things can happen,\u201d said Prigmore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m really hard on myself, and I didn\u2019t think I\u2019d even make it to finals,\u201d said Spring. \u201cI gained so much confidence through the process and am so grateful for the practical knowledge that most people don\u2019t get until a lot later in their careers.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though another buyer outbid her deal, Spring will retain her equity funding and invest it in a hotel project identified by TLT Solutions, Prigmore\u2019s real estate investment firm. Spring also works as a junior market manager for Inspirato, a luxury hospitality company providing its members exclusive access to some of the world\u2019s most luxurious homes, hotels, and hospitality experiences.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Portrait
Makenna Price<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

She plans to stay in the hospitality real estate realm and travel the world before fulfilling her childhood dream of owning her own hotel investment firm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Second Hospitality Student to Compete in She Has a Deal<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Following in Spring\u2019s footsteps is Makenna Price<\/a>, a junior majoring in hospitality business management. After learning about the SHaD competition on Spring\u2019s LinkedIn account, Price said she was definitely inspired to apply. She was accepted to compete in the SHaD 2022 competition April 29-29 in McLean, Virginia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI am ecstatic for She Has a Deal! My professor, Dr. Jha, expressed that he would love to see me compete, so I decided to give it a go,\u201d she said. \u201cI am particularly excited because I want to learn more about investing. There is no other program out there that walks young women through the steps of owning a hotel. Even if I do not win, I am already learning so much knowledge worth more than money.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Price plans to focus her pitch on either an eco-friendly hotel renovation\/conversion or a ground up build that will target leisure and relaxation, she says. She and 30 other women began the SHaD educational series October 13.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Recent alumna Emma Claire Spring always dreamed of owning a boutique hotel. In 2021, she learned about She Has a Deal, an educational real estate investment platform that creates pathways to hotel ownership and development for young women. She entered the company\u2019s hotel pitch competition and spent several months developing a proposal for a Delta Hotel conversion located in Chantilly, Virginia. On June 5, 2021, she won the competition and $50,000 in equity. Current hospitality student Makenna Price is slated to compete in the 2022 competition.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":[561],"featured_media":1158,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[537,539,552],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/business.wsu.edu\/crimsonpineapple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/business.wsu.edu\/crimsonpineapple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/business.wsu.edu\/crimsonpineapple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/business.wsu.edu\/crimsonpineapple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/561"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/business.wsu.edu\/crimsonpineapple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=440"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/business.wsu.edu\/crimsonpineapple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1304,"href":"https:\/\/business.wsu.edu\/crimsonpineapple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440\/revisions\/1304"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/business.wsu.edu\/crimsonpineapple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/business.wsu.edu\/crimsonpineapple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=440"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/business.wsu.edu\/crimsonpineapple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=440"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/business.wsu.edu\/crimsonpineapple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=440"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/business.wsu.edu\/crimsonpineapple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/author?post=440"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}