Super 8 Wants to Change Your Mind About Super 8 Through Design
Photo Credit: All of Super 8 Hotels' 1,800 North American properties, like this Super 8 from Portland, Oregon, will sport a new guest room look by year's end. Super 8 Hotels
Skift Take
It will probably take much more than redesigned headboards to get people to think a bit differently about Super 8, but this is a start, and we like the brand's tongue-in-cheek approach to recycling old artwork, during Frieze New York Art Week, no less.
When you think of Wyndham's Super 8 Hotels, what do you generally think of?
Mike Mueller, senior vice president of Super 8 Hotels, has a pretty good idea, and he's pretty sure contemporary design isn't one of those things.
"I think, often times, people have this perception that affordable hotels like Super 8 mean 'cheap' and cheap design," Mueller said.
That's why Super 8 Hotels is embarking on a nationwide redesign of its guest rooms and public areas in more than 1,800 North American properties to try to, as Mueller explained, change people's perceptions about the brand, which has more than 2,600 locations worldwide.
"My personal goal for this brand is to get people, in the short term, to say, 'Wow, I had no idea Super 8 could be like that,'" he said. "A year from now, I want them to say how great the guest rooms are. I want to migrate the perception of Super 8 as a legacy motel brand and move it into elevated economy within that segment. We are not your grandfather's budg
