ANALYSIS


BY DAVID CHURCHILL


SOFT SELL


WHEN THE CENTURY-OLD REICHSHOF HAMBURG re-opens next month after a Ð30 million renovation, it will be the first European hotel to become part of Hilton Worldwide’s new Curio Collec- tion brand for independently-owned luxury hotels.


The Reichshof Hamburg features


280 rooms, 11 meeting spaces and an impressive ballroom suitable for large conferences. Hilton has already signed up five hotels under the Curio banner since launching the brand last summer. It is not alone among the major chains to recognise that offering independent hoteliers in key locations the benefits of using its distribution and marketing facili- ties can extend Hilton’s global footprint at little extra cost. Marriott, for example, launched its


Autograph Collection in 2010 and has already brought it to London with hotels


26 BBT MAY/JUNE 2015


globally are not affiliated with a brand flag,” explains Dave Marr, Starwood’s global brand leader for Tribute Portfolio. The decision to launch Tribute was


INDEPENDENT HOTELS ARE GATHERING COLLECTIVE STRENGTH IN A MARKET TRADITIONALLY DOMINATED BY HARD-BRANDED CHAINS


such as Threadneedles in the City and St Ermin’s at Westminster. Choice Hotels International offers ‘one-of-a-kind’ hotels in its Ascend Collection of independently- owned boutique and ‘historic’ properties, which debuted in 2008.


GOING UPMARKET Then in April, Starwood Hotels and Resorts became the latest global chain to target the upmarket independent hotel sector, when it launched Tribute Portfolio, its first new brand since 2008 and its tenth overall. The first independent hotel to join Tribute will be the Royal Palm Hotel in Miami, a popular conference hotel. Tribute Portfolio represents what Star-


wood describes as the “upper upscale” segment of the four-star hotel market. “Nearly 50 per cent of upper upscale hotels in the US are independent and, likewise, 60 per cent of four-star hotels


taken by new Starwood CEO Adam Aron who replaced Frits van Paasschen in Feb- ruary. Aron says the new brand is aiming for 100 Tribute hotels by 2020, initially focusing on North America and Europe. The new brand is not Starwood’s first foray into this sector – it formed the Luxury Collection in the late 1990s to house the five-star properties it acquired at the time from ITT Sheraton. Since then, the Luxury Collection has continued to grow with over 100 indepen- dent hotels worldwide under Starwood’s marketing umbrella.


UNIQUE SELLING POINTS In hotel marketing jargon, these ‘collections’ of independent hotels are known as ‘soft’ brands which give their owners greater freedom over hotel stan- dards and operations than if they were in a ‘hard’ brand – the cookie-cutter, one-size- fits-all approach of a franchised Holiday Inn or Marriott.


But the main appeal for independent hoteliers is access to the chains’ booking systems – they offer an extra distribution channel as an alternative to online travel agents (OTAs) that charge up to 25-30 per cent commission (though of course, collection properties are also sold via OTAs, which means two sets of fees).


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