The importance of hotel brands, according to an expert

On his Facebook account, Perillo on Monday points out such an issue that arouses the curiosity of specialists, but also of travelers who closely follow the entanglements of the travel industry.

The analyst recalls that many marketers design hotel brands to appeal more to hoteliers than travelers. a reason? It is easier to create a new brand than to repair an old one.

Major hotel groups introduced a wave of brands in 2023, including Marriott's StudioRes, IHG's Garner, and Paliosociety.

Le Petit Pali by TAG and Paradox, Ying'nFlo by Langham by TUI, The Mora, Siro by Aman and Janu. These brands should not be confused with newer brands, such as Hyatt Studios and Spark by Hilton,

There are currently about a thousand hotel brands around the world. Are there many?

Perillo then turned to a prominent official for answers: Chikitan Dave, a professor at Cornell University's hotel school. Dave literally wrote the book on hotel branding.

Here are a dozen takes from Skift based on what I've heard, says expert Brands are more often built for owners than travelers.

Hotel groups like Marriott have a large presence and any location can feature many of their brands, but then developers need a new brand to stand out and therefore more brands.

Hotel groups can also promise franchisees that they will not allow the same brand to open within a certain distance. But this limits the hotel group's growth in this area, which again leads to more brands.

Brands belonging to major hotel groups are often generic for a reason. The owners want a modular hotel that can move from one brand to another without making major changes.

Moreover, branding can help hoteliers play with online travel companies. The more brands you have, the more likely your property will appear prominently in search engine results for online travel sites and apps.

It's like pills. Conglomerates know that a cereal brand can get lost among all the other boxes on store shelves. With dozens of cereal brands out there, a consumer is likely to see and buy at least one of them (same logic with hotels, or so they think).

Furthermore, the analyst concludes, brand marketers must evaluate the health of their portfolios. They should ensure their hotel brands survive once the post-pandemic travel boom subsides and travelers become more selective again.

RO/RFC