Début Hotel Group, a hotel brand management company housed under Hampshire Hotels Management, launched last week, unveiling five new or updated lifestyle brands.
Hampshire CEO and president Eric Danziger said he anticipates rapid growth across Début's five brands—300 hotels in the next six years—and a portion of that could be facilitated by corporate business.
"Our senior VP of global sales will work with companies and expose them to these new brands," said Danziger, who also will head Début. "I feel like there's great inertia and trajectory around our product and our company. Our credibility with the ownership constituency everywhere is translating to a lot of activity already."
The five brands to be managed by Début include Augustus Hotels, Time Hotels, Dream Hotels, Unscripted Hotels and Night Hotels. Each is designed to cater to a specific market segment: Augustus at the top as a five-star, luxury brand; Time as a four-star, upper-upscale, boutique-inspired brand; Dream as a four-star, upper-upscale, cosmopolitan brand; Unscripted as a three-star, full-service, contemporary brand; and Night as a three-star, upper-midscale, limited-service brand.
The group's launch marks the unveiling of Augustus and Unscripted, and the repositioning or expansion of Dream, Time and Night. Nine properties already exist across the brands, including the Hampshire-managed Chatwal in New York City, which inspired the design of the Augustus brand.
A dozen more hotels will open during the next year, Danziger said. Dream, Time and Unscripted properties are slated for major U.S. cities, including Chicago, Dallas, Hollywood, Washington, D.C. and Long Island City, N.Y. Début also plans to file a franchise disclosure document later this year for the Night brand, which Danziger said potentially could fulfill his 300-property projection on its own.
"Our anticipated growth is very, very significant in all these brands," he said.
As for which brands could be the biggest draw for corporate travel, Danziger said "all of them to some extent, just to a varying degree" with Augustus and Time the likely leaders. He confirmed the group is seeking corporate agreements.
Right now, Début is largely U.S.-focused, but over time Danziger sees select brands moving into Latin America and Europe. Début currently has two Dream properties in Asia, one in Bangkok and the other in Cochin, India.