Skift Take
The biggest news from last week’s hospitality conferences was that there wasn’t much news. But where there was, it all had to do with a single theme: branding. Here’s why.
Last week, many of the big players in hospitality converged in New York City to make huge investment deals and hobnob with their colleagues. And when companies weren’t focused on cutting deals, their CEOs were talking about a lot of things — the Zika virus, terrorism, Airbnb, the rise of nationalism, and the TSA, to name a few.
But one thing that seemed to be top of mind for nearly all CEOs was this: branding. At a time when hotel companies are buying each other for millions (or billions as is the case with Marriott’s pending acquisition of Starwood), and others, like Wyndham, are engaging in massive global branding efforts, one thing is for sure: There are a lot of hotel brands out there, all of which are competing for guests.
And the number of brands seems to be growing. Last week, Trump Hotels announced that it would soon debut a brand-new, as-yet un-named lifestyle hotel brand that, rather tellingly, will not bear the Trump name. When Marriott’s Starwood deal closes, it will own a total of 30 different brands alone. Earlier this year, Hyatt announced the debut of a new soft-brand collection, Unbound Collection, ostensibly to house even more brands within its distribution system. It’s just one of many soft-brand collections that allows independent hotels to have access to a bigger brand’s distribution system by paying, more or less, the same franchise fees, but without having to change their brand name or adhere to as many strict brand standards.
“Admittedly — and I’m an industry specialist who knows a lot about branding and hotel brands —even I get confused by the sheer number of hotel brands out there,” said Gray Shealy, executive director for Georgetown’s Hospitality Management master’s program and a former global design director for W Hotels. Shealy also teaches a course at Georgetown University called “Hospitality Brand Innovation, Experience Design, and Management.”
Shealy personally spearheaded the inclusion of a course in Georgetown University’s Hospitality Management master’s program that would address hospitality branding because, as he said, “This is where the future of hospitality is headed. Branding is where it all comes together.”
Why There Are So Many Brands Now
