Mid-market hotels are back in fashion, says David Churchill, who looks at how the sector is growing and targeting business travellers with value and style
WHEN THE WORLD’S BIGGEST hotelier – it sells more than 150 million room nights a year in more than 4,500 hotels – says it plans to launch a new brand, then it’s no surprise that business travellers and corporate buyers sit up and take notice. But when that new brand is in the mid-market sector, which only a few years ago was regarded as well past its sell-by date, many might find the move rather puzzling. British-based and owned Intercontinental Hotels Group (IHG) is early this year set to announce details of its new mid- market hotel chain, initially in the US, but coming to the UK and Europe later, which is expected to be positioned in the pecking order somewhere below its existing Holiday Inn brand.
IHG is keeping exact details of the new brand close to its corporate chest for the moment, but it has made no secret in recent months of its belief that those who thought there were already too many hotel brands in the world were wrong. IHG’s senior management, who at the moment have responsibility for seven brands globally, believe there is room for a lot more. “You’re going to see much more segmentation in the hotel world as people get more specific about what they want when they travel,” says IHG chief executive Richard Solomons. “Brands are what we are all about.”
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SUPERMARKET SWEEP IHG executives at the hotel group’s recent annual conference for hotel owners and developers in Las Vegas deployed the example of the breakfast cereals market to explain the concept. “If you’re selling cereals [in supermarkets], you can’t have cornflakes all the way down the aisle,” explains IHG Americas region
president Kirk Kinsell, pointing out the large variety of brands available that appeal to different people. This, he argues, is the same for hotel brands – there is not enough variety to meet all demands. “We recognise there is a group of customers who are mainstream, high-frequency travellers whose need is not being met,” he said. The new mid-scale brand – as yet unnamed – is aimed at meeting this demand.
But IHG is not alone in its branding vision. Its major rivals – including Rezidor, Hilton, Marriott, Accor and others – are all plotting brand expansion, particularly in the mid- market sector.
Hilton, for example, is refocusing three of the eight Mint Hotels
“There is a group of mainstream, high-frequency travellers whose need is not being met”
recently acquired by US private equity firm Blackstone (which also owns Hilton) under its mid-scale Hilton Garden Inn brand. These
hotels, located in Glasgow, Bristol and Birmingham, are in addition to the two existing Garden Inns – at Luton and Aberdeen – with another 13 in key European cities.
Marriott is also in the process of revamping its mid-market Courtyard by Marriott brand in Europe, with one of the first of its new-style properties due to open in Aberdeen in 2013 with 194 rooms.
“Within the mid-scale hotel
category, our research has shown that European travellers are looking for fresh, simple, contemporary design, as well as good value,” says Amy McPherson, managing director of Marriott International in Europe. The focus on design and facilities – 42- inch HD televisions and interactive news, weather and local information
‘Go Board’ screens in the lobby – are a far cry from the traditional three-star mid-market hotels of the past, where style was sorely lacking.
Although Marriott’s Courtyard
brand is the 11th largest in the world (according to MKG Hospitality) with more than 900 hotels, the group has been slow to bring it to the UK, possibly because of concerns in the past over the viability of the mid-market sector. But the success of its Gatwick Courtyard, which opened in 2009, has encouraged it to plan further expansion, starting with the new Aberdeen property.
Europe’s biggest hotelier Accor has also identified the UK mid-market as ripe for expansion. It has seized the opportunity created by the recent collapse of Jarvis Hotels Limited (under a pre-pack administration which saw investment company Jupiter Hotels take control) to franchise 24 former Ramada Jarvis- branded properties under its mid- market Mercure label.
The deal is the latest in a series of franchise agreements by Accor as it aggressively grows its Mercure mid-scale portfolio in the UK. It takes