A boutique, principal-led hospitality development advisory and asset management firm serving owners, developers and investors across all hotel types, including resorts.
EMCO’s role is to help owners ask better questions, evaluate trade-offs and maintain a clear view of the hotel as an operating investment.
Engagements are led personally by the principal, with outside expertise brought in when a particular assignment calls for it. This approach keeps advice connected to ownership priorities while allowing the scope to reflect the needs of the property.
President & CEO
Elmer Coppoolse is a lifelong hotelier and entrepreneur with 40 years of experience spanning hotel and resort operations, ownership, development and hospitality technology. He has served as President & CEO of EMCO Hospitality since 2003. Under his leadership, EMCO has held management and ownership responsibilities for more than 25 properties.
For 10 years, through September 2026, Elmer served as Chief Operating Officer of The Greenbrier Hotel Corporation. EMCO also managed The Resort at Glade Springs in West Virginia for more than 20 years, and Elmer remains a part owner of the resort.
That combination of operating leadership and personal ownership informs his work with developers and investors today. Elmer personally leads EMCO’s advisory relationships, bringing an ownership perspective to development decisions, operator oversight and asset performance.
Before his work at EMCO and The Greenbrier, Elmer was part-owner and President of Lancaster Hotels and Resorts, an international company with a dozen luxury properties. Lancaster Hotels was a co-founder of Small Luxury Hotels of the World. His earlier career included senior management positions with Sheraton Corporation and Sonesta Hotels and Resorts.
Elmer was a development partner and Executive Vice President & Chief Operating Officer of SynXis Corporation, which developed internet-based central reservation software for hotels. In 2010, he founded Snowball, LLC, a web management and digital marketing company based in Bethesda, and sold the business in 2016.
Elmer holds an undergraduate degree from the Ecole Hoteliere de Lausanne in Switzerland and a graduate degree in Marketing from the Netherlands Institute of Marketing. He also earned a certificate in Hotel Finance from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.
Start with the owner’s objectives, the asset’s stage and the decisions that need to be made.
Connect brand, design, budget and operator choices to the practical requirements of the hotel business.
Translate reviews into clear observations, priorities and questions for the responsible teams.