Skift Take
Everyone suspected the efficiency and consistency of the Marriott "machine" would be a perfect match up for Starwood's creative and innovative lifestyle brands. While it appears to be working for Aloft and Element, the true measure of success will be what Marriott can do with a brand like Sheraton.
After Marriott purchased Starwood Hotels & Resorts for $13.3 billion in September 2016, a tough question emerged: What would Marriott do with all those 30 brands in its now expanded portfolio?
Whether the company needs 30 brands is another issue, and one that's widely debated in the hospitality industry.
However, a little more than one year after the deal closed, we're beginning to see what Marriott has done with those 11 Starwood brands it inherited, and one of the best examples of that is the company's efforts to try to reinvigorate the Aloft and Element brands.
Investors and owners are still keenly interested in both of the categories these brands represent — select service and extended stay — and Marriott knows Aloft and Element haven't scaled up to their potential. Marriott has opted to focus on revamping these brands while the cycle still has legs.
Aloft and Element owners essentially told Marriott that the biggest problems with both brands are construction costs, as well as property cost models. Marriott's solution was to focus on smarter room designs and more streamlined food-and-beverage programs for both Aloft and Element, as well as a new floor model for Element that would appeal to groups.
Here's a detailed look at the evolution of Aloft and Element, and what it says about the future of lifestyle extended stay and select service hotels.
Pioneers in Lifestyle Select Service and Extended Stay
When Starwood launched Aloft in 2005, followed shortly by Element in 2006, the two brands were uniquely positioned for their time.
Aloft, marketed as "a vision of W Hotels," Starwood's wildly successful boutique twist on the traditional full-service hotel, was meant to follow a similar trajectory, but for the then very nascent, but growing select-service space. At a time when the boutique hotel movement was in full swing, tech-driven Aloft adopted a design aesthetic that was, at the time, very forward-looking — perhaps too much so. Think concrete floors and bright, vivid hues.
Element, by contrast, capitalized on the "eco-friendly" movement that was gaining momentum in the U.S. and worldwide; it required LEED certification, something the brand no longer mandates. It was an extended stay product, geared toward longer-stay travel, and it borrowed its design aesthetic from sister brand Westin.
"They were very innovative in their early launches," Mark Skinner, a hospitality industry expert and partner in The Highland Group
