Emma Claire Spring, 22, didn’t just dream of owning a hotel; she’s spent much of her life preparing for it.

As a child growing up in Whitefish, Spring would pretend her house was a hotel and she was the proprietor, readying the guest bedroom for visiting family friends.

“I’ve wanted to own hotels since I was a little girl,” Spring said, noting that she loved staying at hotels and wanted to live in one as a child.

“Of course when you’re little you don’t know what goes into ownership,” Spring said, like equity or capital — nebulous concepts to a child. “I used to think, ‘I’m going to build it with my own two hands.’”

To get there, Spring knew she needed to have a grasp on how to run a business. By seventh grade, she moved on from lemonade stands to what she considers her first business endeavor, “Pretty Witty Accessories.”

“I would make bags and pencil pouches out of Capri Suns. I also made bracelets and hair bows and bottle-cap necklaces,” Spring said, and sold the accessories by going door-to-door.

By high school, she got her first hospitality job working at the front desk for Best Western Rocky Mountain Lodge and knew she was on the right track.

Spring continued to sharpen her business skills by completing a yearlong national program called the Young Entrepreneurs Academy, where she said she learned the fundamentals of starting and operating a business. With $1,000 in seed money and a six-minute pitch, she and two other classmates launched their culminating project — Appleholics, a business where they made and sold gourmet candied apples.

“I always knew I wanted to be a businesswoman,” said Spring, who graduated from Washington State University in May with a bachelor’s degree in hospitality business management with a minor in French.

SPRING’S CAREER goals quickly began to take shape after graduation, beginning with a major career boost in June, when she won a hotel investment pitch competition called “She Has a Deal,” and was awarded the grand prize of $50,000 in equity. Spring was also excited to have the opportunity to talk to the president of Marriott International.

The competition began in December 2020 with an intense master class. Spring said he had to learn the intricacies of completing a hotel investment deal. Financial modeling was the most challenging to learn, Spring said, noting that her college degree focused more on hotel operations from a management perspective.

“The ownership side of things is very much driven by finance,” Spring said, noting the competition focused heavily on data analytics. “A lot of looking at data and financial modeling.

“Now that I've actually done it, I could do it again easily,” she said.

Spring, who chose to compete solo, sought out industry professionals to guide her in creating a proposal to renovate a hotel within the constraints of a 15-minute pitch delivered to judges in the preliminary round in May. Between the preliminary and final rounds, she said her pitch changed a lot.

“There were a lot of meetings,” she said, with management to construction companies.

Spring said she learned about the competition in her junior year of college while attending a New York City conference where she heard She Has a Deal founder Tracy Prigmore of TLTsolutions, a real estate acquisition and development firm, speak about the competition and the goal of creating a pathway to increasing the number of women hotel owners and developers, according to shehasadeal.com.

Spring said the competition was niche, and so in line with her aspirations.

“This is a sign from God I was meant to be in this room and hear this,” she said.

NOW, SPRING is in the midst of working to acquire a hotel with the goal of making her hotel proposal a reality. Otherwise, the equity will be invested in the next hotel project TLTsolutions pursues.

Her career goals now are to spend the next 10 to 15 years learning as much as she can about the hotel industry.

“I can see myself doing something like Tracy — owning my own hotel investment firm,” Spring said.

Currently, Spring is a junior market manager for Inspirato, a Colorado-based luxury vacation subscription service, where she oversees real estate acquisitions for south Florida and the Caribbean.

The competition taught Spring a lot about working through all the self-doubt and second-guessing that comes with the territory of being a perfectionist.

“I definitely have imposter syndrome. The competition opened my eyes to the fact that I’m a lot smarter than I think I am. I definitely gained a lot of confidence. When I won it really solidified everything I’ve worked for.

“I also learned that you don’t have to be a 40-year-old man to do this. You can be a young female and can really kill it,” Spring said.

“Don’t be scared to fail,” she advised. “Don’t be scared you’re not old enough, or knowledgeable enough about this topic. If it’s something you don’t know you can learn it if you’re willing to put in the time and effort. You can.”

Reporter Hilary Matheson may be reached at 405-758-4431 or hmatheson@dailyinterlake.com.