Courtyard Retains Claim On Midprice W/F&B Lead
In a neck-and-neck finish, Courtyard by Marriott inched past Hilton Garden Inn to take the first-place prize in the midprice with food and beverage category in this year's Top U.S Hotel Chain Survey. This is the second year in a row that Courtyard has claimed the category's top spot, although last year it won by a more comfortable margin and against a different runner-up. Four Points by Sheraton held the number-two spot last year, but fell to fourth place this year. Showing significant improvement this year was Quality Inns, which is part of Choice Hotels International. It rounded out the category's top three, jumping from number eight in a field of nine last year.
Survey respondents were asked to rate chains in the category according to 11 criteria. Courtyard scored highest in four, including the overall relation of the chain's price to value. Hilton Garden Inn scored highest on three criteria, including the quality of its business centers and in-room business amenities. Quality Inns received the highest scores for three criteria as well, including commission payment systems.
Like the performance of its sister category, midprice without food and beverage, midprice with F&B hotels in 2004 saw occupancy levels, average daily rate and revenue per available room increase year over year, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers. The increases, however, were not as significant as the increases posted for upscale, upper upscale and deluxe hotels, nor for an average of U.S. hotels overall. In a reversal from 2001 to 2003, it was the full-service categories that led the industry, not the midprice tiers, as had been the case during the downturn.
RevPAR growth most clearly makes the point. While RevPAR for midprice with F&B hotels in 2004 grew 5.8 percent, it jumped 8.7 percent, 7.7 percent and 10.2 percent, respectively, for upscale, upper upscale and deluxe hotels. For all U.S. hotel categories combined, the increase was 7.5 percent.
Though they placed first and second in their category, Courtyard and Hilton Garden Inn vastly differ in size and brand maturity. With more than 660 properties, roughly 10 percent of which are international, 20-year-old Courtyard in 2003 undertook an extensive renovation program that is due to be completed this year. To suggest the scope of the updating, Chad Waetzig, Marriott senior vice president for select service brands, referred to it as a reinvention. Older properties have been overhauled and new brand standards introduced that reflect the preferences of today's business travelers. Meanwhile, 10-year-old Hilton Garden Inn in 2005 expects to open its 250th hotel, all of which are in North America.
As part of the Courtyard renovation, the public space has been refashioned into a multifunctional "great room." "We learned that business travelers need this space to be more than just a restaurant and lounge," according to Waetzig. "It's a place to congregate, to hold informal meetings, to access business services and a place to unwind."
Courtyard introduced the Market, a pantry open 24 hours a day. "All hotels in the system are going back and installing a Market by mid-2005," Waetzig said. Another new feature introduced was free-to-guests high-speed Internet access in guest rooms of all U.S. hotels, which was part of a larger Marriott rollout of high-speed.
Starting 18 months ago, any new Courtyard to open had to conform to the reinvention. "There are now 40 to 50 of the newest generation open and we expect to continue to grow at this same healthy pace," according to Waetzig.
The majority of new properties will continue to be suburban or highway prototypes. "Downtown properties, by contrast, are more likely to be custom projects, conversions or some sort of adaptive reuse," Waetzig said. "Even though the Courtyard room is a single room and not a suite, we zone the space into sleeping, working and relaxing areas, and that's true whether the location is suburban or downtown."
The 250th Hilton Garden Inn is scheduled to open in the third quarter and be the brand's first flag in New York, a conversion from another flag. Like Courtyard, the chain primarily is new construction. "In 2005, we expect to open 40 new hotels, 90 percent to 95 percent of which will be traditional suburban or highway locations," said Mark Nogal, vice president of marketing.
Conversions are more likely to occur in downtown locations. "You have to be careful when you approach these projects though, because you don't want to diminish your reputation for consistency," Nogal said.
Hilton Garden Inn in 2004 made complimentary high-speed Internet a brand standard with the service available in every room of every hotel. As this model has become accepted practice across the midprice sector, the chain raised the stakes by adding remote printing capability.
"We're the only ones offering it on a complimentary basis," Nogal said. Business travelers can make copies of presentations from their laptops by sending the file directly from their guest room to the property's business center. "The system gives you a security code that you then enter into the business center's printer," according to Nogal. It saves either having to go offsite to print or taking the laptop, a disk or CD down to the business center. Similarly, travelers can send the print job to the business center of another Hilton Garden Inn, where a colleague may be staying. The colleague, provided with the code, can print the document there, also free of charge.