As extended-stay occupancy hit record levels this summer,
Marriott International's Residence Inn and InterContinental Hotels Group's
Candlewood Suites largely dominated their respective tiers in BTN's 2014 Hotel Chain Survey.
Besides earning the top overall score, each brand also swept
every criterion in their respective categories save one. In the upscale tier,
second-place Homewood Suites by Hilton—the top brand in 2013—earned the highest
score for its public business amenities. In the midprice tier, second-place
Extended Stay America, maintaining its ranking from last year, was rated
highest for its corporate rate programs.
[Please click here to
view the digital edition of the 2014 Hotel Chain Survey, featuring all rankings
and downloadable as a pdf.]
For both Residence Inn and Candlewood Suites, it was their
first time in several years at the top of the survey ratings. Residence Inn's
most recent first-place finish was in 2007, and Candlewood's was in 2003.
Marriott's TownePlace Suites, which had been the top-rated
midprice extended-stay brand for three years running, did not generate a large
enough sample size to be included in the ratings this year.
Overall, extended-stay brands showed the largest
year-over-year increases in satisfaction of any tier, and no extended-stay
brand's score declined compared with 2013. Mark Skinner, partner in
extended-stay research firm The Highland Group, said that could be in part due
to a "fair amount of renovation within a lot of products" in the
tiers.
Residence Inn, the first extended-stay brand to launch in
the United States nearly 40 years ago, has been upgrading the guest room décor,
room layout and public spaces across much of its portfolio of more than 650
hotels, said vice president and global brand manager Diane Mayer. Guest room
improvement features include new desks, reoriented living-space arrangements
and more use of natural light. For public spaces, the brand has left physical
layouts largely untouched but has worked to create a style of "residential
outdoor living," including adding fire pits, she said.
About half the brand's properties have made those changes,
and about three-quarters will have done so by the end of next year, Mayer said.
"Tapping into that residential trend is key," she
said. "Another key element is service, because the length of stay allows
more of a personalized service, where employees get to know the guests well and
understand what their special needs are."
Internet access has been another focus for the brand. It has
upped the minimum bandwidth standard for its complimentary Internet offering,
and now offers higher-bandwidth access for a fee, which is waived for
upper-tier loyalty program members, Mayer said.
Residence Inn also has been introducing mobile check-in
across the brand. It currently is deployed in hotels outside of North America
and will launch at all hotels later this year, she said.
Candlewood, meanwhile, this year has focused on creating "greater
consistency in guest experience" across the brand, which now stands at
more than 300 properties, said Robert Radomski, vice president of global brand
management for IHG's extended-stay brands. Part of that effort has been the
expansion of the brand's "lending locker" amenity, from which guests
can borrow items like blenders, slow cookers and electric grills. More than
half of Candlewood's properties this year added that feature, and about 80
percent of Candlewood's portfolio now does, Radomski said.
The brand is adding a feature to its Candlewood Cupboard
honor-system convenience store to offer locally popular items at each
location—a region's signature barbecue sauce or ice cream, for example, he
added.
Sales training has been a priority at both brands. During
the past few years, Residence Inn has worked with general managers to improve
both sales and revenue management skills, according to Mayer.
"In the past, general managers at Residence Inn had
come up through the sales ranks, but over time, they've been coming more
through the operations ranks, so helping them develop their sales skills was a
big impetus," she said. "This is so they can better lead their hotel
in both on-property and off-property sales."
As a brand standard, every Candlewood hotel must have a
dedicated director of sales, and the brand recently insourced its sales
certification training after previously using a third-party facilitator,
Radomski said.
In the United States, midprice and upscale extended-stay
occupancy this year hit their highest levels since 2002, and overall U.S.
extended-stay occupancy was higher than 80 percent during the second quarter,
The Highland Group reported. Average daily rate for the second quarter,
meanwhile, increased 7 percent to $71.98 in the midprice tier and 3.6 percent
to $127.43 in the upscale tier, according to the firm.
"Hotels have been able to drive a bit more rate,
because supply growth has been very limited on the national basis,"
Skinner said. "We're not going to see peak supply years until 2016 and
2017."
This report
originally appeared in the Oct. 13, 2014, edition of Business Travel News.