Fifty candles and a new home for Atlific

Robert Chartrand

MONTREAL—Atlific Hotels is celebrating its 50th birthday with a new logo, an upgraded website, a higher profile and a new corporate office on the fourth floor of the Westin Montreal hotel.

“Our greatest achievement is that we have been through the waves, and that we are still called Atlific after 50 years,” says Robert Chartrand, executive vice-president and chief financial officer, who has been with the company since 1983.  

Atlific deals with 12-15 brands and it is no fluke that those brands recommend the company to others as top-notch third party managers.  

“That is only possible because of our people,” Chartrand adds. “As a management company, we have always viewed our employees not as “assets”, but as “talents”.  We have many loyal people at Atlific. Our IT director has been with the company for 42 years, since 1967.”

Atlific doesn’t like to have a lot of management layers–they want people to be able to make decisions quickly.

“We like to put people at ease,” says Chartrand. “The business world is a tough world, but when dealing with our own people, we have to be an organization that has two-way conversations.”

Chartrand says that while in the past Atlific has kept a low profile, this will change in the future. The company has a new logo and an upgraded website, and expects more announcements to celebrate its 50th year.

As for the new offices, they provide a tremendous opportunity for people at the corporate level to become acquainted with the day-to-day workings of a hotel, Chartrand notes.

Founded in 1959, Atlific began by introducing the Holiday Inn brand to Canada. It opened the first Holiday Inn outside of the United States — Holiday Inn Montreal Airport Chateaubriand.

In 1977 Atlific grew beyond the hotel industry, becoming a franchisor of Wendy’s Restaurants. Growing and within just five years operated 80 of the restaurants in Canada. Atlific also owned 6 Holiday Inns in Montreal by 1980 and owned and/or managed an additional 12 hotels across Canada for a total of 3,500 rooms.

As the owner of three properties in Montreal and one in Winnipeg, Ocean Properties Ltd. expanded the management portfolio of Atlific Hotels upon acquisition in 1997.

Together, Ocean and Atlific continued to develop properties in London, Ottawa, and the Toronto Airport from 1999-2001.

In 2004 and 2005 Atlific added the management of Ottawa’s Lord Elgin Hotel and Deerhurst Resort. Soon to follow in 2006, the newly established Temple REIT approached Atlific to assume management of the Temple Gardens Mineral Spa Resort in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. This pivotal relationship would lead to management contracts with five more TREIT properties in Fort McMurray, Alberta and continues today.

Atlific Hotels continued its history of bringing new brands to Canada by opening Hotel Indigo Ottawa. In 2008 several new properties opened including Executive Suites Garibaldi Springs Golf Resort, Walnut Beach Resort and Nanaimo B.C.’s Vancouver Island Conference Centre.

In 2009 Atlific Hotels opened its largest build to date — Le Westin Montreal, a 454 room property in the heart of Old Montreal.

In total, Atlific Hotels has added 16 properties to its portfolio since 2007. In addition, Atlific’s Deerhurst Resort also announced that it will host the 2010 G8 Summit.

Today Atlific Hotels owns and/or manages 43 properties from Newfoundland to British Columbia with 6,000+ rooms and more to come.