Branding Experts on Guest Reactions to Marriott-Starwood Acquisition
Photo Credit: What will happen to Starwood's Sheraton brand with the Marriott acquisition? Pictured here is the Sheraton Grand Sukhumvit, one of 10 recently re-designated Sheraton Grand Hotels. Sheraton Grand Sukhumvit / Sheraton Grand Sukhumvit
Skift Take
The Marriott-Starwood deal is much more than putting on a fresh coat of paint and moving on with business as usual. The integration process will likely take years, and franchisees can thank booking sites for their large role in that difficulty.
Travel professionals, among the rest of the public, learned Monday that Marriott International will acquire Starwood Hotels and Resorts, and began drawing conclusions about what this means for their corner of the industry.
Of the many gaping questions still unanswered, one of the bigger queries is largely out of Marriott and Starwood executives' hands: When will the average Marriott or Starwood guest hear the big news, and how will they respond?
A Cornell University study released earlier this year, which examined case studies of 200 hotel rebranding efforts, offers this analysis for consumer behavior when a rebranding takes place:
"We observe 29% the hotels rebrand within the same brand umbrella. We find that the effect of rebranding is the highest if the hotel goes downscale and is lower if the hotel stays in the same scale or moves upscale. Once the brand effects are controlled for, the estimates become insignificant if the hotel stays in the same scale, is significantly positive if the hotel switches to a lower scale and is negative if the hotel switches to a higher scale brand."
"As the hotel property’s amenities, staff, and management may carry over from the origin brand to the lower (higher) scale destination brand, customers may find that the experience with the property exceeds (does not meet) the average quality of the affiliated brand after rebranding. Switching to an upscale chain may run the risk of not meeting customers’ expectations formed based on that brand."
Skift recently talked to two hospitality branding experts, Erich Joachimsthaler, CEO and founder of Vivaldi Partners Group, a global brand strategy consulting firm, and Ron Swidler,
