For the first time in five years, Hilton's Homewood Suites
landed at the top of the upscale extended-stay tier of BTN's 2013 Hotel Chain Survey in a hard-fought match against
Marriott's Residence Inn brand, while Marriott's midprice extended-stay brand,
TownePlace Suites, topped the midprice extended-stay tier for the third year in
a row.
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Homewood, which finished fourth of four brands in BTN's2012 Hotel Chain Survey, reversed its
fortune this year. Respondents rated it the overall top brand in its tier, and
it also earned the top scores for consistency, corporate rate programs,
physical appearance, in-room amenities, in-room business amenities and
price/value relationship. Homewood global head of brand management Bill Duncan
attributed the scores to the brand's consistency in service and product and its
focus on the business traveler.
"Business travel obviously is a very key segment for
us, and we pay a tremendous amount of attention to the segment," Duncan
said. "From a travel manager's perspective, we have a tremendously strong
value proposition: a great, full suite but also a full hot breakfast every
morning, a manager's reception every Monday through Thursday and complimentary
Wi-Fi in the public areas and the guest room."
Residence Inn, close behind Homewood in terms of overall
score, maintained its second-place position from 2012 and also earned top marks
for its sales staff, data quality, hotel staff and business centers. On the
sales side, global brand manager and vice president Diane Mayer said Residence
Inn has benefited from a "strong sales culture" within the
brand—general managers of Residence Inn properties usually are promoted from
the sales side, not the operations side—as well as Marriott's development of a
sales resource dedicated to extended-stay clients and an overall sales team
transformation that began several years ago.
Companies "are getting more personalized sales
attention, not just the big guys but feeding on down," she said. "They
have dedicated people calling on them on behalf of the entire portfolio,
whereas they might not have had a direct sales rep five years ago."
Residence Inn and Homewood each improved their overall
scores compared with 2012.
Hyatt's Hyatt House, created from the combination of Hyatt's
Summerfield Suites properties—the top-rated brand in the tier in the 2012
survey—and the LodgeWorks portfolio Hyatt acquired in 2011, was third, followed
by InterContinental Hotels Group's Staybridge Suites.
In the midprice extended-stay tier, Marriott's TownePlace
Suites earned the highest score in every criterion, as it had done the two
years prior. Extended Stay America improved its score from last year by 0.6
points and moved ahead of IHG's Candlewood Suites to second place. ESA, which
went through a few tough years including a Chapter 11 bankruptcy
reorganization, in recent years has invested heavily in renovating its
properties, consolidating its brands and working under new sales and management
teams.
"They've undertaken that massive renovation of product,
so it doesn't surprise me that they moved up the ladder," said Mark
Skinner, partner with extended-stay research firm The Highland Group. "They
do deliver a very good product at a good value."
In fact, renovation fever is sweeping across many of the top
extended-stay brands, much as it has for their midprice and upscale cousins in
recent years. Homewood Suites, for example, recently embarked on a systemwide
refreshing of its portfolio, including new lobby and lounge designs, with a
goal to have all hotels completely redone by the end of 2018, according to
Duncan.
Residence Inn also is renovating, including adding such
in-room furnishings as more comfortable sofas and new desks, global brand
manager and vice president Diane Mayer said. About 100 renovations were
completed last year, and the brand is on target to do the same this year and
again in 2014, she said.
"We have the ability to freshen hotels, following a
little bit of a backlog during the recession," Residence Inn's Mayer said.
"We do not do it piecemeal; the entire hotel will be renovated."
Similarly, TownePlace has an "aggressive renovation
strategy" in place including a new décor package launched in June,
according to vice president and global brand manager Loren Nalewanski. Among
the décor elements are new sofas, chairs and burnt orange lamps with electrical
and USB charging capabilities.
"This will help provide a bigger lift to this brand,"
Nalewanski said. "It has a very sophisticated, casual and residential feel
to it."
In the United States, extended-stay rates have been rising
at a pace "better than the overall hotel industry but not as strong as
most people had thought it would be," Skinner said. During the first half
of 2013, upscale extended-stay average daily rates increased by 3.8 percent
year over year to $120.05, and midprice ADR increased by 6.9 percent to $66.01,
according to The Highland Group. Both segments remain below peaks reached
before the economic downturn began in 2008, though occupancy also is on the
rise in both segments.
Extended-stay rooms under construction also are at their
highest level in four years, The Highland Group reported, with hoteliers
forecasting 110,000 rooms to be added through 2017, an increase of 31 percent
compared with current supply. In the shorter term, supply this year is forecast
to increase by 1.5 percent compared with 2012, though that includes the
reopening of hotels that were foreclosed during the recession, not just new
construction, Skinner said.
At Marriott, Residence Inn has the largest pipeline of its
extended-stay and select-service brands, with about 160 more hotels planned to
join its current footprint of 646 properties, Mayer said. The brand
particularly is focusing on urban locations, like Midtown Manhattan, where
Marriott in December will open a hotel tower at 54th St. and Broadway. The
tower, which will be the city's tallest hotel building, will house both a
Residence Inn and a Courtyard hotel. Marriott also is expanding TownePlace
Suites' presence across North America, including such new urban locations as
San Diego and Boston, Nalewanski said.
Recent Homewood openings have included the first of its new
prototype design, which comes with a smaller footprint and lower construction costs,
in Joplin, Mo., last year, as well as properties in Atlanta; Denver; Fort
Worth; Kalispell, Mont.; and Newport, R.I., Duncan said. At the same time,
Hilton is concentrating on expansion of its newest brand entry, the midprice
extended-stay Home2 Suites.
Extended-stay hotels remain largely a North American
concept, though Residence Inn in particular is entering such markets as Munich,
Edinburgh and Bahrain. The brand also is looking increasingly at opportunities
in Latin America, an area where, unlike Europe, the brand can leverage its
North American design as it expands in the region, Mayer said.
This report
originally appeared in the Oct. 14, 2013, edition of Business Travel News.