franchise soft brands in terms of occupancy , ADR and RevPAR .
“ Our hotels honestly could act a lot faster ,” Woodley explains of the pandemic performance . “ They didn ’ t have to wait for the brand to say , ‘ Here ’ s now what your cleaning protocols are , here is now what your food and beverage protocols are .’ Independent hotels could act right away .”
For the Global Hotel Alliance , which works largely with independent hotel brands , their most attractive product for independent luxury hotels has been a loyalty program with nearly 20 million members . GHA recently added The Set Collection as well as the NH Hotel Group , totaling 40 brands and 800 hotels across 100 countries .
Yet , as loyalty programs changed , often becoming more complex and frustrating for guests to understand , the GHA realized its loyalty product had to evolve to ease these pain points and also to build an advantage against competitors .
“ We started seeing a common trend of what consumers wanted and across the markets , regardless of what their reasoning was , they wanted simplicity , they wanted transparency ,” says Kristi Gole , vice president , head of product for GHA . “ They wanted to know , what am I earning , what ’ s the value of it , and then they wanted it to be easy to redeem and have choice on how they redeemed it .”
Guests enrolled in the GHA Discovery program now earn Discovery Dollars , ranging between 4 % and 7 % of the total bill , which can then be used upon the guest ’ s next stay and at property outlets . Members also receive 10 % off room rates . For the hotels , GHA no longer charges fixed fees for the loyalty program , instead using a variable fee system depending on where the guest ’ s repeat stay originated — whether from the hotel itself or another promotion done with GHA . According to Gole , the loyalty program delivers an ROI independent hotels couldn ’ t achieve on their own .
“ We want it to be an attractive program to the end consumer , the hotel guests . And the more attractive the program is , the more that they ’ re going to choose to stay with the hotels that have that program ,” Gole says .
The newcomer to the soft brand party , Curator Hotel and Resort Collection , which launched in early 2020 , aims to help independent hotels , big and small , from an asset management standpoint utilizing some of the deals that its parent company , Pebblebrook Hotel Trust , has secured .
The newly opened Sommerro in Oslo , Norway , from Nordic Hotels & Resorts , is a member of Preferred Hotels & Resorts .
“ We ’ re trying to put the whole toolkit together for the hotels , so they can tap into all these resources to help their top line as well as their bottom line ,” says Jennifer Barnwell , Curator ’ s president . This includes more than 80 master service agreements , insurance policies , proprietary workflow systems , and pilot technology programs . Currently , Curator has 91 properties in its roster .
“ We run the gamut of almost everything you need to run an independent hotel ,” she adds . “ Because we ’ ve gone through exhaustive RFP processes , and done tons of due diligence to end up with partnerships at better financial terms or cost terms than anyone can get on their own .”
Despite the rosy outlook from within the soft brand landscape , it won ’ t be immune to outside forces such as drops in demand , new lockdowns , or the ongoing staffing issues which Turk says could affect the standards often required of hotels to join a soft brand , whether franchised or independent . Turk also advises hotels to be certain they can deliver on their partnerships as being removed from a soft brand means having to start the process all over again .
Yet for now , to stay competitive going soft is a solid move for an independent hotel .
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