supposedly “reflect traditional US values and honour the local heritage”, according to Eric Danziger, CEO of Trump Hotels, who adds: “It’s all about hometown America.” Neither brand will feature the Trump name, unlike his other hotel properties.
The first Scion branded hotel is set to open next spring in Cleveland, Mississippi, while the Mississippi Delta region will next year see the first American Idea hotel – coincidentally in a state where Trump beat Hillary Clinton by 18 percentage points in last November’s election. Both hotels will be conversions from existing properties under construction.
While IHG’s planned new brand was de- scribed at the Las Vegas convention as aimed at “principled everyday travellers… who value a hard-earned dollar”, analysts suggest this may just have been to reassure the present owners. In reality, it seems inevitable IHG will pivot towards the millennial market when it defines the concept further. It is clear that the now well-documented millennial phenomenon (a quick search of the BBT website reveals we were writing about millennial-focused hotels back in 2013) is a key influence on the hospitality sector – and likely to be for at least the decade ahead, in terms of hotel design, targeting and customer base. The cohort of travellers in their 20s and 30s have shown they have definite ideas and preferences when it comes to choosing and using accommodation, while the parallel emergence of disrupters such as Airbnb in the hospitality world has added to the pressure on traditional hotel groups to revise their strategies. Hilton’s newly launched Tru brand, for example, is unashamedly aimed at the travel- ler with a ‘millennial mindset’ on a budget. It has all the characteristics of a millennial-fo- cused property: rooms without conventional
wardrobes or desks, large-screen flat TVs, and lobby areas which are used for networking and recreational activities. And rates are positioned below traditional midmarket hotels, such as Hilton’s own Hampton Inns. With two Tru properties already open in the US, Hilton is ramping up the roll-out by opening a new one every month until the end of this year, with 60 more due in 2018. While the brand is initially only in the US, it is expected to be brought to the UK next year.
This is a rather rapid roll-out in com- parison to the new generation of millen- nial-focused brands from other chains, such as Marriott’s Moxy which, although announced way back in 2013, so far only has nine properties open worldwide. A further nine, however, are scheduled before the end of this year, including a 294-room hotel at Stratford in east London.
Other chains are also quick to come up with new brand concepts but tardy when it comes to physically opening actual hotels. Hilton’s Canopy lifestyle brand, for example, was announced in autumn 2014, but the first hotel did not open until a year ago, rather surprisingly in the Icelandic capital Reykjavik. Next up are two Canopy hotels in Washington DC, due before the end of this year, with the UK’s first Canopy, located near the Tower of London, set to open in “early 2018”.
The impact of the millennial traveller on the midmarket sectors – both on business or pleasure, but increasingly combining the two – is reshaping the branded chains primarily in the US but also in Europe and elsewhere. Latest US data for rooms under contract as
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