Skift Take
So, it's not being marketed as a "hostel on steroids," as Hilton CEO Chris Nassetta once described it, but Motto by Hilton is more or less a lot of what we've seen before, albeit with a few twists.
Hilton's newest brand, its 16th overall, following the addition of LXR, is an urban microhotel concept called Motto by Hilton.
And while it might not be marketed as a "hostel on steroids," as Hilton CEO Chris Nassetta described it in September 2017 at Skift Global Forum, it certainly borrows a number of ideas from that category. And it is just one of many new microhotel, or pod-like hotel concepts to be introduced in the past few years.
"We've been developing the brand for a year plus, now and spending a lot of time in the hostel segment to understand what's going on," Tripp McLaughlin, global head of Motto by Hilton, said in announcing the brand unveiled Tuesday. McLaughlin said Motto was inspired by "the rise of boutique lifestyle hostels" and the fact that that hostels, traditionally, excel at "creating a community vibe" and work better for group travel.
"There is a nugget of truth to what Chris is speaking about," he added, acknowledging Nassetta's previous comments. "But with what hostels stand for, we just didn't feel comfortable about planting our flag in there."
McLaughlin isn't alone in this assessment. Generator, a brand that made its mark as Generator Hostels, is also working to drop the "hostels" part of its name.
So, instead of calling it a hostel, Hilton has decided to market Motto as "the most affordable urban lifestyle brand" and an "urban microhotel" with rooms averaging 163 square feet each.
But just how affordable is Motto supposed to be — both for hotel owners and for potential guests?
McLaughlin said it would depend on the market and the individual property, but couldn't disclose a cost to build per room key, or an average nightly rate. The average room count for a Motto is estimated to be 175 keys.
What he did note, however, was that this was a brand that would offer hotel owners "flexibility" to invest in the elements that matter most to them. As far as chain scales, or categories go, Motto would be "between midscale and upper midscale."
In other words, Motto by Hilton be the epitome of "select service" when it comes to the services and amenities that owners want to
