Who Launches a Brand in the Worst Year Ever for Hotels?
Photo Credit: Trend Hotels & Suites just launched and plans to capitalize on an expected increase in brand conversions (pictured: a rendering of a Holiday Inn Express-to-Trend Hotels conversion). Trend Hotels & Suites
Skift Take
It's the worst time to launch a new hotel brand, right? Maybe not, if you're banking on a low-cost conversion model for operators struggling to meet bigger brand standards.
It may be a bizarre time to launch a new hotel brand. But it’s also never too soon to start looking for opportunities, according to the My Place Hotels of America executive team.
My Place just launched Trend Hotels & Suites, a new collection of extended stay and upper-midscale and upscale hotels, earlier this month. It might seem like an awful time to introduce a hotel brand in the U.S., with industry groups like the American Hotel & Lodging Association saying the coronavirus pandemic will make 2020 the worst year for hoteliers in recorded history.
But the Trend Hotels & Suites parent company expects the brand, a conversion opportunity for independent hotel owners or those operating with a competing flag, to throttle forward in the current economic climate.
“As we were evaluating what might change in the future for us and what we’ve developed as resources and infrastructure over the last few years from My Place, I think we had the confidence to see a pandemic
