Fairmont Hotels & Resorts this month named Jeff Senior to be its senior vice president of marketing and sales, while InterContinental Hotels & Resorts last month appointed another lodging industry veteran, Mark Wells, to be its senior vice president of brand performance for the Americas. Both executives have brand-building at the top of their agendas. With the lodging industry rebound in full swing, hotel companies feel increased pressure to gain market share from key audiences, corporate accounts chief among them.
"While the rebound is stronger in certain markets and countries than others, it's clear that business travel, both transient and group, is back and in the key U.S. market is very strong. In addition, we're a deluxe brand, a tier that has performed especially well in the recovery, relative to the industry generally," said Senior, who comes to Fairmont from IHG, where he was vice president of brand management.
Unlike certain competitors, where driving average rate has become the major priority, Senior said Fairmont has taken a more moderate approach. "We've taken the past couple of years as our distribution grew to invest heavily in relationships with buyers and don't want to do anything now to jeopardize that," Senior said. "Consequently, we're going to be sure our rate strategy is palatable. The relationship with the buyer goes beyond market conditions in any given year. Because Fairmont owns so much of its real estate, we have a different perspective, perhaps, than a lot of other brands. We're making decisions in the short term, recognizing that they have to be good decisions for us and our travel partners in the long term as well."
With Fairmont's acquisition in January of The Savoy in London, giving the brand a foothold in Europe, the strategy is to expand to more gateway cities, not only in the United States and Canada, where Fairmont began, but internationally. "The intention is to be able to give buyers more of the coverage they need worldwide," said Senior, who earlier in his career held sales and marketing positions at Marriott International, Doubletree Hotels and the Kimpton Hotel & Restaurant Group.
Business Travel News cited Senior's influence when it named his former boss, Stevan Porter, as one of the Top 25 Business Travel Executives of 2003 for eliminating attrition clauses from group contracts while at IHG.
"At that time, planners were dealing with an unheard of level of risk and anxiety, so removing those provisions was the right thing to do," Senior said. "On the other hand, planners understand that the risk today is different and that a good relationship in regards to attrition is a two-way street."
While Fairmont essentially is a single-brand company, IHG has multiple brands that range from InterContinental, which bridges upper upscale and deluxe price points, to Holiday Inn and Holiday Inn Express in the midprice with food and beverage and midprice without food and beverage segments, respectively. The challenge facing Wells is to keep the brands differentiated in the minds of buyers.
"Certainly, it's an advantage to be able to offer buyers a range of options in a market that reflects different types of business trips and travel budgets," according to Wells, who came to IHG from Pegasus Solutions, where he was president and COO of Utell Ltd., which provides sales and marketing support to independent hotels. "Even with the rebound we're seeing, buyers tell us they need to keep an eye on costs, and we're sensitive to that."
IHG last year launched a new brand, Hotel Indigo, and in late 2003 acquired its second extended stay brand, Candlewood Suites. "Indigo addresses the lower upscale segment," Wells said. "It's more of a lifestyle hotel, a tier where we really have no competitors among the other multi-brand companies. If anything, it competes against independent hotels. Upscale Crowne Plaza, meanwhile, is focusing more on meetings."
With availability more of a concern for buyers today than in recent years, IHG offers last room availability, though at a premium in certain instances.
"Our objective is to fill our hotels, so partial availability makes no sense," said Wells, who earlier worked with Choice Hotels International and Promus Hotel Corp., which was acquired by Hilton Hotels Corp. "If there's a room available and the buyer is a good customer of ours, we naturally want that account's traveler to have the room."