Special RepoRt : Soft brandS
Evolving pitches Maturity brings with it new sales pitches to drive growth .
The biggest change Marriott has made is require Autograph hotels to hire a branding agency to help “ bring their hotel to life ” and keep the collection authentic . It then uses and encourages more story telling about that authenticity via social media . “ I tell owners there could be US $ 50 of ADR in the social and branding pieces that they must identify ,” Robinson says . “ A cool building is one thing , but if you can bring it to life and create , for example , an awesome food and beverage experience , you can see a significant ADR increase .”
Ascend Hotel Collection ’ s Neil Cantor says they are also asking members to “ have a story and bake it into their environment and service culture .” If they don ’ t , he says , that ultimately gets written into a PIP .
Doing business differently is Best Western , which expects to initially develop 25 to 30 Premiere Collection Hotels . Its pitch : charging hotels only for the business it generates . “ We ’ re almost like a travel agent ,” suggests Senior Vice President of Brand Management Ron Pohl . “ It ’ s a
The Boxer Boston is a member of Hersha Hospitality ’ s Independent Collection . distribution agreement that we ’ re charging 10 % commission .”
Pohl also likes to point to Best Western ’ s negotiated percentages for rewards redemptions , a la carte service options
Preferred Hotels & Resorts Palazzo Versace Dubai ( training , for example ) is the group ’ s new flagship in the Middle East and and its short four-year latest addition to its Legend collection .
deal with a 12-month out . Of the six Premier Collection hotels open today , Pohl says all are performing better than they were prior to signing on .
Control your destiny While the soft brand ’ s pipes may be delivering for some independents , others have been able to live without an affiliation . Until recently , think Kimpton . But today there are small groups like Commune and Provenance in the U . S ., scores of independents across Europe and similarly situated boutique groups in Asia Pacific . “ You might have to work real hard to bring the business , but when you have so much information out there about all the various
TradiTionalisTs evolve
Among long-standing soft brands are The Leading Hotels of the World , Preferred Hotels & Resorts and Berlin-based Design Hotels . All three seem more focused on driving sales than growing their portfolios . Both Ted Teng of Leading and Lindsey Ueberroth of Preferred cite e-commerce as a big focuses moving forward , as well as growth of their loyalty programs .
“ I focus entirely on driving samestore sales growth . I am not under any pressure to add hotels ,” says Teng , who over the past six or seven years has terminated about 250 hotels while adding about 150 . “ We translate everything to US dollars , so while it looks like revenue growth is flat , when I compare euros to euros , year-on-year we ’ re up 19 % in revenue generated … Had we not had a decline in the value of the euro , I ’ d say we ’ d be up probably about 10 % to 12 %.”
Teng says Leading measures every fee dollar against every dollar of revenue generated for members and today stands at about US $ 12 as the multiplier . His goal is to reach US $ 15 and then US $ 20 . “ It ’ s a big goal to have that impact , which means we have to look at how we spend the money very carefully to really focus on high impact areas for our hotels .”
Preferred also states it has been
26 HOTELS January / February 2016 www . hotelsmag . com